


Episode 1-18 - "Guarding the Future"

by stgjr



Series: Undiscovered Frontier Season 1 - "Seeking the Past" [18]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Mass Effect, Original Work, Star Trek
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Multiple Crossovers, Multiverse, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-01 08:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10917702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stgjr/pseuds/stgjr
Summary: The future is at stake for the crew of the ASV Aurora in their fight to keep the ancient Darglan Facility out of Reich hands.





	1. Chapter 1

**Teaser**  
  
  
There was silence in the Conference Room beside the _Aurora_ bridge. Outside the window the streaks of warped space continued to stream by. All eyes were on Commander Elizabeth King, the commander of the _Sladen_. Even her own officers were stunned by her admission: she was spying on the _Aurora_ crew on behalf of Admiral Davies, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. The same man who had tried to take the _Aurora_ away from them.  
  
"The Admiral will be incensed with me for explaining this," she began. Her English accent was polished and refined. "But you deserve to know."  
  
"This reason that justifies spying on my crew?", Robert asked pointedly.  
  
"Yes." King put her hands behind her back. "Tell me, Captain. Have you ever thought about the inquiry after what happened at 33LA?"  
  
"Thought about what in particular? The way your patron tried to railroad us and went digging into our past to attack us with it?" Robert leaned forward in his chair. "Or how he tried to turn my best friend against us?"  
  
"Admiral Davies believes Commander Carrey to have great potential. He didn't want Carrey disgraced with the rest of you. But that is not relevant to the issue at hand." King had returned to her seat. Now she tapped her hand to the table. "Despite everything, you were let off with a reprimand. No matter how many policies you had violated, you were let off lightly. Haven't you ever wondered why?"  
  
In truth, Robert had. He had decided it represented the President's influence, that Morgan had made backroom deals and arrangements to stop Hawthorne. "I imagined it was politics. That our supporters outmaneuvered the others."  
  
King shook her head. "I saw Davies' records of the first votes. The initial vote was not in favor of your censure, Captain. It was in favor of your removal and court-martial. Further court-martial proceedings were to be voted on for your fellow officers."  
  
"Obviously that didn't happen," Julia said., "So if you're telling the truth, the Committee changed its mind before it called us in."  
  
"It did not," King answered. "It was compelled to change its vote."  
  
"Compelled by the President?"  
  
King shook her head. "No. If you want to know whom…" King's head turned. "...why don't you ask this mind-reader?"  
  
Meridina met King's eyes with some confusion. "Commander?"  
  
"I know full well you can read minds, 'Commander'," King stated harshly. "And are you going to play innocent and insist you did not know what happened?"  
  
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Meridina insisted.  
  
"Hrm." King looked to the others. "The reason you are still aboard this vessel is because, after the initial vote, the Gersallian Interdependency informed the Committee and the President that it would withdraw from the Alliance if you were removed from your ship."  
  
"… _What_?" Robert was incredulous.  
  
"Indeed. They threatened to withdraw from the Alliance. The Dorei joined them. And then the Sirians, and the Colonial Confederation…" King's gaze was hard. "The Gersallians would have ripped the Alliance apart. They would have walked out with over a third of the Alliance. And we believe they would have made an attempt to seize the _Aurora_ from spacedock."  
  
Everyone stared at King in bewilderment. "You can't be serious," Leo said.  
  
"I am," King answered. "I have the minutes." She hit several keys on her multidevice and began displaying them on the holo-projector for everyone to read. The undoubtedly fierce arguments had been reduced to written, official form. Councilman Pensley's harsh invective seemed to leak bile from the projection in his demands for the Committee to stand fast and throw Robert and the others into the stockade. Almost equally harsh was Councilman Zoral's demands for Pensley's censure and declaration that he would try to get Hawthorne ejected from the Defense Ministry by a Council vote. Senator Sriroj and Councilman Palas, a Gersallian, had exchanged harsh words as well after Palas had informed the Committee of his government's overnight instructions. Word started coming in of all the governments backing the Gersallian demarche, including Zoral's.  
  
"And I thought they were harsh on us," Angel muttered, reading the rancor that had erupted within the Committee.  
  
In the end, President Morgan himself had called in to confirm to the Committee of what was going on. Robert's admiration for the man could only increase at his response to the crisis. He could have reminded everyone of the Nazis and used that as a scare tactic, but instead he had emphasized the need for compromise to save the Alliance. In the end, Robert's censure had been agreed upon, and a couple of votes had shifted to against the removal and court-martial.  
  
"So the Gersallians led the people backing us," Angel said. "So what? Isn't this politics?"  
  
"No, Lieutenant, it is not," King declared coldly. "It was nothing less than an ultimatum. The Defense Committee was compelled by threats to reverse its vote."  
  
Suddenly Davies' sullen words after that hearing had made sense. Undoubtedly the same rancor seen here had come up after the war started. All of those nations that had threatened to leave if pressed for more ships and troops… had they been the other nations that hadn't sided with the Gersallians? It would make Davies' charge that their victory in the Committee had come at "a cost" all the more true.  
  
King, meanwhile, continued on. "Afterward, Admiral Davies initiated an investigation into the Gersallian actions with Naval Intelligence."  
  
"Davies is using the military to _spy_ on an Alliance member?!", Julia asked with an outraged tone. "That's…"  
  
"...necessary, Commander," King insisted. "Made necessary because of her kind." Again King was glaring at Meridina.  
  
"Commander, I do not know why you evince such hostility toward me. If it is fear of my power, I would never use it against others. Taking the mind of another is an act of terrible darkness."  
  
"Then do you deny that your Order is responsible for the Gersallian government nearly tearing the Alliance apart? Because that is _exactly_ what was done. The Council of your organization directly advised the Gersallian government to threaten withdrawal. I have seen the evidence, Commander." King looked to the others. "It was what the Admiral used to convince me of the scope of the threat."  
  
Meridina remained in stunned silence.  
  
"I can go on. I will." She looked again to Meridina. "Your people, your 'knights' or whatever you call yourselves, you never join militaries. You _work_ with them, yes. But none have fully joined a service before. Accepted a military rank. Not until you. And you are immediately assigned by another Gersallian to the most advanced ship in the Alliance, with a young and inexperienced crew. You, a telepath with those 'life force' powers that enhance your powers."  
  
Julia realized where this is going. "You think Meridina's been invading our minds. Mind-controlling us."  
  
"To take control of the _Aurora_ , yes," King charged. "The Gersallian government seems enthralled to the Order, after all. Now they undoubtedly look to expand their power."  
  
"Commander." Meridina shook her head. "If this is what you and Admiral Davies believe, it shows only your ignorance of my people. Our culture, our beliefs, you understand nothing of us."  
  
At that, King nodded. "You're right. I don't. And Admiral Davies has only begun to understand. So, understand what it looks like to us. You break your Order's precedent on serving in military organizations. You accept a rank. You request assignment to the _Aurora_ , not for a temporary mission but permanent assignment. It is suspicious behavior, Commander."  
  
"It's paranoid bullcrap," Lucy retorted. "It's xenophobia."  
  
"It's reasonable precautions, Lieutenant," King countered. She sighed. "The damnedest thing is, I do actually believe you are telling the truth. Admiral Davies won't be happy with me for that. The Admiral is convinced that the Gersallian Order of Swenya is trying to subvert the Alliance government. And he has Hawthorne convinced of the same."  
  
"Which explains the questions they gave me in the committee," Meridina stated quietly. Her expression betrayed intense sadness.  
  
Robert let out a sigh. Having it all explained didn't make it feel any better in the end. And the revelation of how fragile the Alliance still was had not been pleasant.  
  
That wasn't the only thing. There were more questions. Not just contemplating how many supporters for their removal were still out there, but wondering why the Gersallians had considered them worth ripping the Alliance apart. _What is going on?_  
  
_And now we need to figure out what to do with King._  
  
King appraised them for another moment before speaking again. "I understand if you no longer wish to work with me. But I do not believe you are in any situation to do otherwise. I give my word that I will cease my activities for the duration of this operation."  
  
"I think you'll understand if we don't take your word on that," Angel grumbled.  
  
"You do not have much choice, Lieutenant."  
  
"No. We don't," Julia said.  
  
"Her mind is quite disciplined and resistant to my power," Meridina stated. "But I sense no falsehood from her emotionally. I believe the Commander is honest when she says she will suspend her spying."  
  
"I'd rather throw her in the brig and then march her back to Davies in cuffs," Angel growled.  
  
"I suspect, Lieutenant, that I will not come to great inconvenience for this," King stated matter-of-factly. "The Admiral may not be pleased with my discovery, nor that I have not given him the concrete evidence he wished to show the Committee, but he will not allow me to be punished for acting on his own authority. Otherwise that authority would be undermined."  
  
"The President might remove him for this," Julia pointed out.  
  
At that, King smiled thinly. "Come, Commander. You know as well as I that Davies has his own allies in the Council. And Defense Minister Hawthorne, of course. President Morgan's administration cannot survive a major scandal, especially if Hawthorne and Davies are accusing the Gersallians of mentally influencing him and others. So long as the war proceeds satisfactorily, I'm afraid Davies' position is quite secure."  
  
Jarod sighed and nodded. "That's probably right. The last thing anyone needs is political upheaval in Portland. We're still at war."  
  
It was Julia who now stood up and addressed them. "Well, we've gotten this all out now," she said. "The issue with the communications has been decided and we can be sure it wasn't another Changeling. Now that we've got that, we need to focus on the task at hand. We're about twenty-four hours out from Gamma Piratus. So let's get ready for it."  
  
There was genuine appreciation in King's countenance. "Agreed, Commander. Captain…?"  
  
Robert drew in a breath. "Right. You're right, Commander," he said to Julia. "We've come this far. We need to be ready for what comes next so we can finish this. You're all dismissed."  
  
  
  


**Undiscovered Frontier  
_"Guarding the Future"_**

  
  
_Ship's Log: ASV Aurora; 15 October 2641. Captain Robert Dale recording. We're less than a day out from Gamma Piratus now. Currently we are moving at maximum warp to arrive at the planet where the Darglan left their Facility in S4W8. Alliance and Klingon vessels are already reporting engagements with enemy ships in the area, giving us a solid opening to either take the Facility or, if we need to, destroy it.  
  
For the moment there is no sign of pursuit from Reich ships. Our greatest issue seems to be internal with this revelation about Commander King working for Admiral Davies to spy on us. Our relationship with the Commander had always been proper and professional. Now the distrust is such that I'm worried we won't work well when the shooting starts.  
  
My nightmares of late are also concerning me. These are clearly more potential futures my… 'gift'... enables me to see. I have a decision coming, and the choice I make may spell the difference between victory or defeat for us.  
  
No, not just for us. For the Alliance. For everyone. A Third Reich with Darglan technology and interuniversal drive would be a nightmare. We have to stop them._  
  
  
A cooling lunch was on the table in front of Robert. It was only partially eaten, however. He was simply too absorbed in his thoughts.  
  
"Are you alright?"  
  
He looked up and over to Julia, who slid into the chair opposite him with her own lunch. Since Hargert had no support staff with him, simply the crew assigned to the galley, there were no waiters or such available. Instead Hargert and the galley cooks were keeping a buffet bar open, refilling it with comfort foods for the crew to eat as they came through.  
  
"Thinking," he admitted. "Is everything still going smoothly?"  
  
"Scotty says the drives are holding together. We may need a week or two in spacedock after this is all over, though. The constant warp jumps and moving along at high warp have left several components showing warning indicators. Scotty's talking about doing a complete drive overhaul."  
  
"It would give everyone a break," Robert pointed out. "So it might be for the best."  
  
Julia nodded before continuing. "As for the Nazi ships in the area, Cat's been watching them on long-range sensors. They've dropped their search routes and formed up near their frontier to face the force Maran sent after them. Councillor Kurn should be attacking them by the end of the day. No matter what happens there… those ships won't be coming after us in time to stop us."  
  
"Any sign of the _Eichmann_ and _Reich's Glory_?"  
  
Julia frowned and shook her head. "No. Given how long of a head start they had, they could have covered a lot of ground before we left New Austria. I've got Cat scanning on long range for them, but there's no sign of them yet."  
  
"What about the long-range probes? Aren't they still out here?"  
  
"Command shifted them out of the area to assist in the planning of the New Austria attack."  
  
"So we're going in blind." Robert sighed. "Damn."  
  
"You think the _Eichmann_ will come after us at Gamma Piratus, don't you?"  
  
Robert nodded. "I've… well… half the ship probably knows by now about what I've got. What I've… developed."  
  
"You mean how you have the same powers Meridina is teaching Lucy in using?", Julia asked. Her tone was a careful one.  
  
"Yeah." Robert picked at the potatoes on his plate. "Meridina says my nightmares come from this thing. This gift. I'm seeing glimpses of a possible future. Just as I did before 33LA."  
  
"Which is why you did what you did then." Julia leaned forward in her seat. "You're having these dreams now? About this mission?"  
  
He nodded. "Yes. And they're not pretty. I feel like there's a decision I'm going to make that will literally be the difference between us succeeding or getting killed."  
  
"I see. I suppose that makes sense." Seeing that Robert was still struggling with his thoughts, Julia reached her right hand over the table and set it on his. "Robert. I trust you. We all do. That's the reason we agreed that you would take charge on this. When the time comes and you have to make a decision, we'll support it. You'll feel better if you trust your decisions as much as we do."  
  
"It's hard given the stakes. And the nightmares. God, 33LA is still on my mind, even after everything that's been said about it." He swallowed. "I feel like… I'm being tested by the most horrible teacher ever. I'm being shown results without being told how they came about."  
  
"Trust your instincts, Robert. That's all you can do. Please."  
  
There was something in Julia's voice. Her confidence in him, born of a lifetime spent in each other's company, was not something Robert could just ignore. After several moments he breathed in and nodded. "Right. Right." He decided to take a bite of his food. It was cold, distorting the taste it should have had. His cheeks curled as he made a face showing the displeasure his tongue was reporting. "Dammit. Excuse me." He stood up with his plate to go and get fresh, warm food.  
  
Julia couldn't help herself at that point. She started to giggle. An amused smile crossed her face as she dug her spoon into her own lunch plate to resume eating.  
  
  
  
  
There was a crash of wood against wood in the holodeck. The chamber had been changed to reflect an open courtyard under a blue sky. Lucy recognized the infrastructure as that of the Gersalllian Order of Swenya's Temple near the Gersallian capital on their homeworld, evidently the kind of place where such training duels might be waged.  
  
For the moment she was more wrapped up in dealing with Meridina's powerful attacks. It took Lucy everything she had to avoid blows, to re-direct the energy Meridina would throw at her, and in short to do what she could to avoid being defeated. Her own gift gave her insight into how Meridina would react to any situation, much as Meridina's gift did toward her, and the result was a combat where each partner could generally see the other fighter's move as or before they were doing it.  
  
These fights nevertheless usually went the same way; Lucy would inevitably think intently on a planned attack and Meridina would parry it with enough force or technique to disarm Lucy. And she would lose. If she wanted to win, she needed to do something else. To fight without thinking, not in a mindless berserker kind of way but by calling on her life force, on her connection to the wider universe, and letting it guide her as it guided Meridina.  
  
It needn't be said that this was _much_ easier a thing to say than to actually _do_.  
  
Meridina wasn't holding back at this point. Strike after strike came Lucy's way. She seemed to spend more time evading and parrying than fighting. All the while she tried to attain that feeling, that state where she was truly accessing her power in everything.  
  
And then she sensed it. A strike, coming it at an angle. She never had the chance to really think about it though. Her arms moved almost of their own accord to parry the blow.  
  
For that split second, Lucy would have an advantage in footing. She let the instincts inside of her, inside of her very life force, take control of her legs and knees. She bent her legs and lowered her center of gravity. Her left leg slid out from under her and hooked around Meridina's ankles. The Gersallian woman yelped in involuntary surprise as her legs were pulled out from under her. Lucy quickly pinned Meridina's sword arm with her foot and brought the tip of her blade to her throat. "Do you yield?"  
  
The surprise on Meridina's face gave way to satisfaction and pride. "Yes," she said. "I yield."  
  
Lucy was beaming with satisfaction when she pulled her blade back. "About time. I was beginning to think I'd never win."  
  
"And yet you continued to try. Such are the wages of perseverance." Meridina accepted Lucy's hand in getting off the floor.  
  
"Well, yeah. I've got to learn how to stay strong and controlled and all that, right? Especially if we get into a fight." Lucy set the training sword aside and picked up a towel to run over her sweat-covered skin.  
  
She was untying the belt around her training robe to get at the skin underneath when Meridina stepped up beside her. "There is some extra training I wish to undergo today with you, student."  
  
"Oh?" Lucy re-tied the robe and turned to face her instructor. "What is…?"  
  
She stopped speaking at the sight of the finely-carved wooden box in Meridina's hands. Lucy hadn't noticed it in the room, but Meridina had gotten here before her and had left it to the side, perhaps even hidden by the holoprojectors initially. She took a moment to admire the craftsmanship. The wood was fine and smooth to the touch. The false sunlight off the holodeck shined brilliantly from the surface. Brass plates on the cover of the box were engraved with the fine curved symbols of Gersallian, flowing into each other not unlike how Latin alphabet letters might be written finely.  
  
While Meridina held the box toward her, Lucy opened it. Within the box, in a velvet cushion area cut away specifically for something of that size, was a single metal object. Lucy's eyes widened at recognizing it. Her mouth went dry as she gently used her fingers to pull it free of its place. She wrapped her fingers, her entire right hand, around the object upon pulling it free. She examined it closely for a moment. Could it be…?  
  
Her thumb found the switch upon it, embedded in the hilt just below the guard. She held it away as she triggered it.  
  
A sharp sound filled the air. Gray fluid erupted from the hilt within an electromagnetic field. It assumed the shape of a blade before the memory metal, following its programming, hardened and became solid.  
  
A _lakesh_.  
  
She held the weapon in her hand for a moment. It was rather light. Almost impossibly so. But she knew from experience that it could cut, and cut well. She held it up and gave Meridina a disbelieving look. "Is this…"  
  
"It is yours, Lucy Lucero," Meridina said.  
  
Lucy looked back to the weapon. She gave it a few practice swings to test it. Very light indeed. Easy to control. A faint blue over it showed the presence of the latent EM field that could deflect energy weapons, maybe even bullets, if used defensively. "But…" Lucy shook her head. "I haven't joined your Order. I said no. You're not supposed to…"  
  
"...our rules are quite clear," Meridina stated. "We must not show those outside the Order the secret of how we craft these blades. I have done no such thing. I simply gave one to you. A student in the Order would craft their own upon their admission into the _swevyra'se_."  
  
"But… that's semantics, isn't it?", Lucy pointed out.  
  
"Perhaps. But it is the right thing. You will have need of this for what is to come." Meridina gestured toward the fighting circle they had trained in. "Computer, please access dueling partner Meridina-1, difficulty 1."  
  
The computer generated a single figure, a light-skinned Gersallian with cyan-shaded training robes on. The figure raised a _lakesh_.  
  
"So I'm sparring against the computer?", Lucy asked while approaching the figure. She brought her her _lakesh_ and held it with both hands.  
  
"Yes. To get used to your new weapon. Later I will bring up the training simulation for deflecting enemy fire."  
  
"Oh, that will be fun…", Lucy murmured. Once she was in position and had her weapon in ready stance the program activated. The holographic duelist moved forward and made several basic attacks. Lucy met them, parrying and deflecting while looking for the openings to make her own. The _lakesh_ was even lighter than their wooden practice swords. She had to be more careful with it.  
  
Meridina sat and observed. Or rather, she started to, but she ended up looking over the box. Old memories kindled within her of when she had been given the box, a holding box for a _lakesh_.  
  
Her fingers traced the engraved inscription. She felt an old ache in her heart ,as she read it.  
  
_To my child, both of the Order and of my blood.  
  
I am proud of you, daughter.  
  
Go and stay true to your heart, knowing that your father loves you always.  
  
Karesl_  
  
Meridina considered the inscription and felt it all the more bittersweet when she thought about the state of her relations with her father now. An avowed enemy to her mentor, _Mastrash_ Ledosh, Karesl was part of the group in the Order arguing against support of the Alliance and everything else she believed in.  
  
And yet… she could only hope that the inscription had stayed true. And that despite everything, her father still loved her.  
  
  
  
  
The last pre-op meeting between Kane, Shepard, and Worf had ended. The Marine commander was off to finish his day, in preparation for what was to come tomorrow. That left Shepard and Worf in the room. Shepard looked over to the alien, who in his own way looked more Human than every alien species back in her home galaxy, and nodded. "So. Tomorrow."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"We see if all the training we put these people through worked or not." Shepard crossed her arms and leaned against the nearby wall. "And if not, we probably get killed."  
  
"Most likely," Worf answered, in his own laconic way. "But a Klingon does not fear a death in battle."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"To die a warrior's death," Worf explained, "is to join Kahless and our ancestors in _Sto'Vo'Kor_."  
  
"Ah." Shepard nodded. "How very Viking of you."  
  
Worf let out a low, rumbling chuckle. "I have always felt that the ancient Norse were Humans who would understand Klingons best."  
  
"I don't know. They were more the raiding and piracy types. So, this Kahless, he's what… a god of war, or more of a Christ figure?"  
  
"He is neither. He is the greatest warrior of our history. The leader who overthrew the dishonorable reign of Molor the Tyrant." Worf smirked. "We Klingons do not have gods. An ancient warrior slew them long ago. They were far more trouble than they were worth."  
  
Shepard had only one reaction to that. Worf was quite surprised to see it was to start laughing. Hard. It took her several moments to recover enough to stop. "Wow. That _is_ some interesting theology you people have." She ceased leaning against the wall. "See you tomorrow?"  
  
Worf answered with a nod. "Yes."  
  
"And when it comes to death in battle…" Shepard turned away and started walking to the doorway out. "...I prefer to let the other guys do the dying. It's easier to win that way."  
  
It was Worf's turn to laugh hard.  
  
  
  
  
It was getting late. Caterina knew she needed to be getting to bed soon given the day she had ahead of her.  
  
First, though, she wanted to check on things, so she was ending her day in Science Lab 1. As she had expected, Data was present, working his own console. "Is it ready?", she asked.  
  
"I have configured the ship's systems to interface the _Aurora_ 's tertiary auxiliary computer core directly with the Facility once we have established a communication line. This should allow us to access critical data immediately and keep backups should the Facility require destruction."  
  
"Good idea." Cat took a seat and checked some displays. "And the remaining tertiary computer cores can provide us a lot of space for that data." Something on the screen prompted Cat's expression to shift to confusion. "Say, have you see this? Who's running this high level diagnostic?"  
  
"Lieutenant Lucero. She believes there may be an unknown issue with the computer core."  
  
"Huh. I hope not." Cat went over the results so far. "I mean, it's been behaving well. It's worked like a charm before. I'm not seeing anything different on the results. Maybe that Cylon virus caused a few bugs while it was being deleted. It might explain the weirdness."  
  
"Perhaps. I will continue monitoring before we depart in the morning."  
  
"Are you sure you don't want some sleep? Or rest or something like that?"  
  
"In ordinary circumstances I would spend my off-shift hours fulfilling hobbies and practicing sleep in order to dream."  
  
"You can dream?" Cat looked at Data with surprise.  
  
"Yes. My creator, Dr. Noonian Soong, gave me the capacity to begin dreaming when I put myself into a sleep mode."  
  
"That's… really cool." Caterina was smiling when she turned back to inspecting the display in front of her. The smile faded as she fought back a yawn. "I think I need to get some sleep myself. We're going to have a big day tomorrow."  
  
"Indeed. I shall see you in the morning." Data turned back to his work as Cat departed the room.  
  
  
  
  
That night, the dream returned to Robert. With even greater ferocity. More images of the others going down, a desperate fight with Reich forces that resulted in defeat. Cat's execution at their hands. The _Aurora_ bridge in ruins, a gap opening to space, Julia screaming his name as she was sucked out into space.  
  
He cried out to her… and then he was in space beside her. Agony and horror were frozen to her features. Her body did not move.  
  
Below them, he watched the shapes of black-hulled Reich warships pouring fire into the broken, battered remnants of his ship… until it exploded.  
  
And then… New Liberty in flames. Portland in L2M1, the Alliance capital, being bombarded into ruins from orbit. Swarms of Reich warships blasting _Babylon-5_ to pieces, the emerald of their disruptors replaced with the sapphire color of Darglan weapons technology.  
  
Whole planets burned.  
  
This was a possible future. A future where they failed tomorrow. Where the Reich got their hands on the Facility and all of the technology found within.  
  
As the planets burned, he felt like he was zooming out, flying away from the systems, from the galaxy, until the Milky Way was below him.  
  
The stars started to go out. One after another. A wave of pure darkness spreading out until it had engulfed the galaxy.  
  
And then it reached beyond the galaxy. Every galaxy in his vision, every one a Milky Way, suffered the same fate, the same wave of darkness flowing over them. Until nothing was left.  
  
Nothing but darkness. Pure, unbroken, absolute darkness.  
  
And then it appeared in his vision. The orange disc in the gold frame. The item handed to him by the Consort Sha'ira during his visit to the Citadel, which she insisted he would need in the near future and the far. The object neither of them knew the origin of.  
  
When the image ended Robert found himself in his bed. There was warmth pressed against him. Angel's breath brushed against his neck, her head resting on his left shoulder. The warmth of her skin against his own reminded him of the pleasure it had brought, the intimacy they shared, and how much it made this work bearable.  
  
He shifted out from under her and got out of the bed. Warp space was still visible outside of the window. That was a comfort in a small way. Nobody would be looking in the window and noticing that he wasn't wearing anything, even in the dim light.  
  
Ordinarily he might have picked up shorts or a bathrobe to put on, for modesty's sake, but Robert's mind was still dwelling on the images. The deaths the dreams had shown him, the loss of everything he loved. More than ever he felt like he was at a decision point that would determine how the future would go.  
  
His eyes fell on the orange disc from the dream. He reached his hand for it and felt the gentle buzz from it. Like an electric wire with a current running through it. It seemed preposterous as Cat had confirmed that it had no technology in it. It should not be feeling like this.  
  
He set a hand on it. Just for a few moments. He couldn't make out the images he sensed in his head. He could feel what they meant though. A feeling he had.  
  
And that was when he made his decision about the next day.  
  
Two arms wrapped around his chest. They were strong, muscled. He felt Angel behind him. "Another dream?"  
  
"Yeah.," he said. "Bad one."  
  
"Dammit." Angel kissed him on the back of the head. "There's got to be a way to stop this stuff. The crazy life force stuff Meridina went on about, I mean."  
  
"I don't think there is," Robert noted quietly. He picked up the orange disc and held it in his hand. He wasn't getting the same sense of visions from it anymore. But he still had the feeling, raw and internal, that his thoughts were right. That he had to do this.  
  
"Angel…?"  
  
"Yes?", she asked.  
  
Robert turned and faced her. They pulled closer together. "I've made up my mind," he said. "I'm going down there, tomorrow."  
  
Angel drew in a breath. "What? Why? You can't…"  
  
"I have to. I… I think I'm seeing the future if I don't. A future where Cat and the others die because I'm not down there. The Nazis take the Facility. The _Aurora_ gets destroyed."  
  
"It's just a dream, Rob," Angel insisted. "That's all it is. You don't have to…  
  
"I do," he insisted. "And I will. For you, for Cat, for everyone. I can't let those dreams come true."  
  
"Don't be a hero," she insisted. "Please."  
  
"It's not about that. Don't worry, I'm not looking to die." He looked down at her. Like him, she hadn't bothered to pull a robe on. It would be pretty embarrassing if someone walked into his quarters at that moment. But it did give him a look at her, a familiar one of course. Her body, while not rippling with muscle like a bodybuilder, had the strong muscle tone that mirrored her physical attitude. It fit the image of what Angel was in his head; strong, powerful, a fighter. And he knew from experience she would fight for everything she loved.  
  
Ever since they had gotten back together, for what seemed like the tenth time (it was actually less than that, admittedly, but it always felt like they'd broken up more often than they had), he had wondered if it would hold. When it would end. What would come between them and push them apart again.  
  
But right here, right now, that didn't matter.  
  
"I love you, Angela," he confessed. "Please, understand that I _need_ to go down there. To guard what we have together and could have together."  
  
Her hazel eyes burned with frustration. "If you think you need to…"  
  
"I know I need to. For all of us."  
  
"...fine." She nodded.  
  
There were no more words to say. He pulled her close and locked his lips to her lips. They shared a deep kiss.  
  
It was Angel who would pull them back into bed. They needed to sleep, after all.  
  
Not that they went straight to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future is at stake for the crew of the ASV Aurora in their fight to keep the ancient Darglan Facility out of Reich hands.

Robert was not the only one dreaming that evening.  
  
_Obersturmbannführer_ Erik Fassbinder looked up at the ceiling of his spartan quarters on the _Eichmann_ , the modified _Aryan_ -class dreadnought under total _Schutzstaffel_ control. The dreams felt so real. The Reich in victory. Fassbinder standing over the broken forms of the _Aurora_ 's crew, over others, a Multiverse awaiting their conquest.  
  
Fassbinder was interrupted by a knock on his door. He called out for whomever it was to enter. When he noticed Eicke coming in, clad in his uniform, he stood up and saluted, receiving the customary salute in reply. He was self-conscious of his own state of undress, sleeping shorts and a sleeveless shirt that did nothing to hide the rippling muscle of his perfect physique. " _Herr Oberführer_ , my apologies for…"  
  
" _Nein_." Eicke waved him off. "I am unoffended. Have I interrupted your sleep?"  
  
" _Nein_."  
  
"Good. I thought you should know that we have the _Aurora_ on long-range sensors."  
  
Fassbinder grinned. "Are there any vessels escorting them?"  
  
"None that we can read. We must assume they have docked their one gunboat escort, of course. But that they are alone is a great boon to our purpose."  
  
"Then we are in position? We are ready?"  
  
"We are. Once they show us how to access the mound's secrets, you and your team will go in." Eicke smiled viciously. "And I will take revenge for the _Aurora_ helping those _Juden_ escape their end."  
  
"Of course, _Herr Oberführer_."  
  
Fassbinder had a question on his mind. And his expression must have shown that, as Eicke stated, "What is on your mind, _Obersturmbannführer_?"  
  
"Questions, _Herr Oberführer_. About our foes."  
  
"Ah?"  
  
Fassbinder looked over to his desk. Reports were displayed digitally there. "Undoubtedly you have heard of the false Humans among them? These… 'Gersallians'?"  
  
"I have. They will face their fate in the ovens when the day comes."  
  
"Indeed. But there is something interesting about them. Them, and those elven species, the Dorei I believe they are." Fassbinder picked up one of the digital readers and handed it to Eicke. "Have you seen the reports about some of the battles with them?"  
  
"I have read of our victories," Eicke boasted. "I have not bothered with further analysis. _Untermensch_ are _untermensch_ , we will crush them all."  
  
Fassbinder knew he had to tread carefully at this point. "It is said some wield strange powers. To influence minds, to move with great speed, and to predict the near-future with sufficient accuracy to deflect weapons fire."  
  
Eickle laughed at that. "Superstition from conscripts in the _Wehrmacht_. Nothing more. If anything, it is undoubtedly technical trickery."  
  
"Our comrades in the Waffen SS have confirmed reports, though. On the world of Gamar, an entire platoon was held back by one of these beings." Fassbinder showed an image of a Gersallian in a blue robe over purple armor. A blade shining light blue was in his hands. "Their elimination of the alien populace on Gamar was prevented by his attacks. The reports are…"  
  
"...technical trickery," Eicke remarked dismissively. "Fassbinder, do not tell me you accept these tales. To think that _untermensch_ " - even Fassbinder was stunned at how much venom and hate Eicke could manage to pack into the term, it was truly impressive even by SS standards - "could wield power not available to an Aryan? It is laughable."  
  
"But what if it is available to us?", Fassbinder asked. "What if we have never found it because we have never needed it. But they, weak as they are, did find it, and use it? Imagine how great it would make us if we discovered it as well? If even such aliens are made powerful by it, how powerful would _we_ be? None could deny the supremacy of the Race. All of the dreams of the Founders for our Race could be fulfilled, sir…"  
  
Eicke answered with a "humph" sound. "I doubt it, Fassbinder. But there is reason in your words. It is something to… consider, at least. But focus on the task at hand first. Our victory will be won or lost with this battle, Captain."  
  
Fassbinder answered that with an enthusiastic salute and " _Heil Sauckel!_ ". He held his arm up longer and added, "I will depart for the surface immediately, _Herr Oberführer_."  
  
" _Sieg Heil_ , _Obersturmbannführer_. The future of the Reich, of the entire Aryan Race, is in your hands. Do the _Führer_ proud!"  
  
  
  
  
It was not often when Julia regretted saying something.  
  
Now she was.  
  
_You promised to trust him. And to support his decisions. You even encouraged him to follow his instincts!_ Julia thought these things while Robert finished the morning paperwork while in his field action uniform. "So you're certain?", she asked.  
  
The look in his eyes was all the answer she needed. He added to it with a nod. "I am. As certain as I've been of anything."  
  
"You know how bad this is going to look," Julia pointed out. "You are the commanding officer of this ship. If a command officer is going in the field, it's supposed to be _me_. Remember how it nearly went when you went after Potano? And that wasn't even a guaranteed combat situation."  
  
"I know." He nodded. Robert hit a final key and stood up. He drew in a breath. "I wouldn't leave you in this position, Julia, if I wasn't absolutely certain of myself. But I am. Every fiber of my being, every part of my heart and soul, is saying that if I don't go down there today, we _lose_. We all die, the Nazis get the Facility, the Multiverse _burns_. We _have_ to stop it."  
  
Julia sighed at that and leaned against his table. If her hair wasn't back in a ponytail it would have flowed over her shoulders. "You know King might be able to give this to Davies."  
  
"Yeah. Let her." Robert frowned. "God damn Davies. That's what it's been about, all of this time. He's paranoid about the Gersallians, about their Order of Swenya, and he's lashing out over it. But we can't help that. It won't matter if the Nazis get all of that Darglan technology." He rounded the desk and stood beside Julia, who straightened to her full height. At just over six feet she was arguably an inch or two taller than he was. Their eyes met. "Your place is up here, Julie," he said. His use of her childhood nickname made it clear that he was being very personal. "In that chair, keeping the ship safe, and winning against whatever they throw at us."  
  
She nodded. "Yeah. But…" She smiled thinly. "Robby, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to be Captain. But I can't do it at your expense. And this… it almost feels like that. You're worried you'll make a bad call in that chair and that we'll die from it. So you're asking me to take over, even if it weakens your own position as Captain of this ship."  
  
That was a hard point to dispute. It would certainly look that way, after all. Robert shook his head, though, and said, "I'm not doing it for that. Not over 33LA and my call there or anything like that. I'm doing this because I know where I need to be today, and I know I can be there because you'll be up here."  
  
The only way Julia could reply was with a nod. "Alright," she finally said. "You'd better get going then."  
  
He nodded at that and walked out of the ready room. She followed. The bridge crew had taken their posts by this time, save Angel, with Ensign al-Rashad taking Science due to Caterina going down. Mataran, the Gersallian ensign, was at Engineering. But Nick Locarno and Jarod were in their proper places, and both looked intently at her as she nodded to Robert and took the command chair. He went on to the lift.  
  
"Captain Dale is going down to Gamma Piratus 3," she informed everyone. "I'll be in command for this operation."  
  
"Understood, Commander," Locarno said. He looked to Jarod, who smiled thinly and shook his head before turning his attention back to the Operations board.  
  
  
  
  
Angel kept pace beside Caterina. She felt intensely frustrated at it all. Robert was going down, Cat had to… and she would have to stay up here at Tactical. And every time she looked at Cat, wearing the field action uniform with pants instead of her preferred skirt, it just rubbed it in more. "I wish I was going down," she finally said.  
  
"Angel, we'll be fine," Cat insisted. "Meridina's going, Lucy's going, Kane and his Marines… and you know how strong Shepard and Worf are, and they'll be there too! Robert and I will be okay!"  
  
Angel shook her head. "I know. I know what you're saying. But…" She clenched her fists. "I know."  
  
They entered the Transporter Station, Number 1, and Robert and some of the others were waiting. Worf and Data were in Starfleet uniforms specially made to be like their own action uniforms, provided by the ship's armorer and the Starfleet uniform replicator pattern. Shepard was in her dark gray combat armor with the N7 mark prominent on the right side of the chest. Robert was in a field action uniform - the first time Angel had seen him in it - while Meridina was in her purple armor with blue robe.  
  
As was Lucy. Angel stared in surprise at that. Lucy was dressed up like Meridina.  
  
"We're ready," Robert said to Caterina. "Kane and his Marines are in the other Transporter Stations, ready to beam down when we do."  
  
Cat nodded. She turned and gave Angel a tight hug. "I love you, Angel. I'll be back, don't worry!"  
  
"I always worry about you. You're my _crazy_ little sister after all." Angel gave her a kiss on the forehead, at Cat's hairline. "Be careful."  
  
"I will," she answered.  
  
Angel looked to Robert and walked up to him. He took her into his arms and they shared a brief kiss. "You too," she said.  
  
He nodded in reply.  
  
Everyone was taking up positions on the transporter. As they did so, Worf looked back to Angel. He nodded. "I will take care of them. On my honor."  
  
"Thank you, Commander Worf," Angel answered. She nodded to the petty officer manning the transporter.  
  
He pressed his controls. White light surged around them and whisked them away.  
  
Angel took in a breath to steady her emotions and left. It was time for her to report to the bridge.  
  
  
  
  
The air was cool where they beamed down. It reminded Robert of crisp fall days in harvest time, when you had to wear long-sleeved sweaters to keep the cold off while working the harvesters or organizing the bushels.  
  
Their environs consisted of blue-green grass and undergrowth in an open valley. Tall snow-topped peaks towered in all directions. Data had not been kidding about the location's fitness for anti-space defenses. He was at the front of the group with Worf, Caterina, and Shepard, holding out a Starfleet tricorder. Cat had her own scanner device, a detachable scanner from her personal multidevice, in her right hand. Worf was carrying a sleek-looking Federation phaser rifle and Shepard had an Avenger assault rifle in her hands.  
  
Kane and his people were also carrying their arms. Corporal Ijala had his sniper rifle slung on his back. Lucy and Meridina had no weapons held, content with the pulse pistols and weapon hilts on their belts. Pulse pistols were also in the hilts of the engineers toward the rear of their group, surrounded by more of Kane's Marines. A count told Robert they had at least fifty people present. And the _Aurora_ would send down more if they sent the signal to do so.  
  
As they ascended the mound, Robert felt a sensation. An unease. What was it?  
  
"I am detecting some form of pressure plate sensor," Data noted as they reached the top of the mound. He knelt in the grass and brushed it around until a brown patch of material was showing. "I am not showing any indication of how to operate it."  
  
"Lucy and I have activated them before," Robert noted. He looked over to Meridina. "Meridina, why don't you try this time?"  
  
She nodded at him and stepped up beside Cat and Data. She knelt down and pressed a hand against the plate. After several moments she stood again. "Nothing is happening. Perhaps I need to put weight upon it?"  
  
"Hold that thought." He turned to Lucy. "Lucy, why don't you step down with the others? That way if it brings us along you can start relaying them in?"  
  
Lucy nodded at that. "I will." She moved away from the crown of the mound.  
  
Once she was clear, Meridina applied weight to her foot on the panel.  
  
For a few moments, Robert thought it might not be working. But there was a sudden surge of light from the crown of the mound that encircled them.  
  
The mound, the outside, it all disappeared. Dull light surrounded them. Robert could smell the stale air and dust of centuries. A distant thrum indicated that long-dormant life support systems were activating.  
  
"I will never get used to that," Caterina squeaked.  
  
Data held up his tricorder. "I am detecting a dimensional disturbance consistent with a dimensionally transcedental field."  
  
"Sounds about right," Robert murmured, stepping forward. A large door loomed ahead. A light erupted from the area above it and moved over him. After several seconds, the light flashed blue and the door slid open. "Here we go."  
  
Robert's heart was pounding with excitement. After all of this time, all of this searching… they were here. Another Facility. The legacy of the Darglan species was everywhere in these walls.  
  
Kane and Shepard stepped in first with weapons at standby positions. Data and Worf followed up and Caterina and Meridina behind them. Robert tapped the commkey on his device. "Dale to Lucero."  
  
" _Lucero here._ "  
  
"It's open. Start sending people down."  
  
" _Okay._ "  
  
Robert turned to the side of the door. Beyond them the walls wwere sheened with azure color and dim lights. The entire Facility was remaining in low power mode. The Control AI wasn't even responding yet. He looked to the side of the door and saw there was a control. "Huh." He put a hand on it and a holo-display appeared. After several moments the alien figures it was displayed transformed into Latin characters. English language controls appeared. He hit one to hold the door open. "Commander Kane, keep two of your people here. Their job is to hold the door open until we're all inside. Or Nazis beam in. Then they need to close it right up."  
  
Kane nodded. Behind him, the transporters lit up. Lucy appeared with several Marines and engineers behind her. He started barking orders.  
  
"This place is a little spooky, isn't it?", Cat murmured. "I mean, it's dark and not as nice-looking."  
  
"Maybe it's the way they left it when they deactivated it," Robert pondered aloud. He motioned onward. "Come on. Let's go check the central control area."  
  
They advanced onward. Cat and Data kept scanning. Worf and Shepard looked around at the silent halls with weapons at the ready. Behind them Meridina was looking around. "This place…" She shook her head. "It is not like your Facility was."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"No. There is a sense of… terror here. An old feeling of loss and worry."  
  
"Maybe this was one of the last Facilities the Darglan left? We heard from their recording that they were forced to give up interuniversal travel by other races. Probably the First Ones of their home universe given what we found on their homeworld." Cat looked back briefly. "I mean, that would make anyone feel lost and worried."  
  
"I suppose," Meridina stated. But Robert could tell her heart wasn't in the reply. She thought this was something more.  
  
And he had to admit… so did he.  
  
They found the control chamber where they had expected it. The lights were still low, as if the Facility was not bothering to recognize their presence. It gave the entire chamber a foreboding look. The windows that would have shown the internal dock were covered by blast doors. Cat moved over to one of the panels like the one she'd often used back in the day and ran a hand over it. Nothing happened. "One of you needs to activate it," she said to Robert and Meridina.  
  
Robert stepped up to the central control. He put a hand on it.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
"It is possible the Darglan altered their access protocols compared to the Facility you once inhabited," Data pointed out.  
  
Robert shook his head. "Then why did it let us in? Why would the system recognize us enough to let us in but not to activate for us?"  
  
"Maybe it's some sort of extra security?", Cat suggested.  
  
  
  
  
Over Gamma Piratus, the _Starship Aurora_ continued her quiet orbit. The smaller _Sladen_ was nearby, cloaked, ready to protect the larger ship if it came to it.  
  
There were bursts of light and energy from along the ship's drive hull, along its highest decks. A flight of Mongoose starfighters erupted from the _Aurora_ launch tubes. In the lead fighter, Lieutenant Commander Patrice Laurent, the _Aurora_ 's CAG, looked back at his compatriots. One of his alien pilots, the Kerbal Lieutenant Jebediah Kerman, was on his right wing, ready to execute whatever insane maneuver that could cross the little green alien's mind in a fire fight. To his left wing were two more Mongoose fighters under the control of Lieutenant Gwen Skydancer - a brilliant young woman from the Sirian League who stood out among Laurent's pilots from her richly-colored purple hair and striking green eyes - and her Gersallian wingman Ensign Lerisl. "Beginning system patrol, _Aurora_ ," Laurent stated.  
  
" _Confirmed_ ," was the quick reply from Jarod.  
  
"Eyes front, everyone," Laurent ordered. He considered his course toward the first of the inner planets. The patrol wouldn't take long at all.  
  
" _I read you, sir_ ," was Skydancer's answer.  
  
  
  
  
The final group was gathering on the mound around Lucy. She looked down at the pressure plate they'd found. It was well-hidden, certainly, and if they hadn't been looking for it they might never have found it.  
  
Lucy took in a breath. She was distracting herself with that thought. The truth was, she was concerned. There was something wrong. She looked around the clearing the mound was in and to the wood lines beyond, wood lines going up into the mountains that surrounded the valley.  
  
_Is there something out there?_ , she thought. Instinctively her hand settled onto her new _lakesh_. But she didn't pull it out.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
The young engineer, a male Dorei of blue coloring and teal spotting, was giving Lucy an uncertain look. She nodded at him and put a foot on the pressure plate. The transporter built into the mound whisked them away.  
  
On the other end the door was being held open. The engineers and security people in the group followed her inside, where the Marines dutifully closed the door upon their entry. "There should be a common room nearby," she noted. "We'll set up the transport enhancers there."  
  
While she was speaking, Lucy felt a cold chill go through her. There was something about this place. Something… wrong.  
  
  
  
  
Cat and Data were hard at work on the control panels. Robert looked away from them and to the holo-screen displaying Julia's face up on the _Aurora_. "We're still not sure why the computer systems aren't coming on." he looked about. "This place isn't like our old one. It feels dark and unpleasant."  
  
" _We're ready to start beaming down more personnel to help examine everything_ ," Julia said.  
  
"Just another security and engineering team. We already have plenty of people down here as it is. There's no point in giving us more."  
  
" _Agreed._ " Julia looked offscreen for a moment. Jarod was apparently speaking to her. " _Jarod says we can try a remote connection to the Facility. Maybe there's a way to activate its systems if we use the_ Aurora _computer._ "  
  
"Cat and Data should have the hook-up to our tertiary cores done soon. You'll find out quickly if it works." Robert looked to the others. Meridina had a pensive look to her. Shepard had her assault rifle still at hand, like at any moment violence would erupt. "Keep in touch if anything changes. Dale out." He ended the call.  
  
The door opened and Lucy entered. Like Robert and Meridina, she was particularly jumpy. "So, am I the only one getting the creeps from this place?', she asked.  
  
"You are not," Meridina said.  
  
"It's hard to believe the Darglan changed this much between Facilities."  
  
"Any sign of their scout ships? Or another Emergency Ship?"  
  
"We won't know until Cat and Data can access the computers." Robert gestured to the blast shields that had been lowered over the viewing ports that would have shown the internal docks. "The lifts are locked down."  
  
"There are still the tubes, though, right? Maybe I should go set the scuttling charges just in case?"  
  
Robert thought on that. He was still hoping that they could secure the Facility and keep it. But it was best not to assume anything. He nodded to Lucy and looked to Kane. "Commander Kane, Commander Worf, please take a team and join Lieutenant Lucero on planting the naqia charges on the DT field machinery."  
  
"Yes sir." Kane nodded to Lucy and followed her out. He started barking orders to the Marines outside.  
  
With Kane and Worf gone, Shepard and Meridina remained as commanders of their bodyguard contingent. The former seemed less plussed than the latter. Her assault rifle remained at ease in her arms. "So you're saying this place isn't as welcoming as it should be?", she asked.  
  
"Exactly," Robert answered. _Why, though? Why does this place fill me with dread? What happened here?_  
  
  
  
  
Julia waited patiently for further updates in the _Aurora_ command chair. Everyone was busy at their stations. Locarno kept the ship in stable orbit, Jarod was busy working the computers… everything was it should be.  
  
This part of the job was not the easy part. Friends were off in an unknown situation and all she could do was sit, watch, and wait. She could tell Robert felt uncertain and worried whenever he spoke. What was wrong down there?  
  
" _Laurent to_ Aurora _. Sweep of second planet finished. We are heading to the first planet._ "  
  
"We read you, Able Leader," she answered.  
  
Jarod looked back at her. "I think I'm in."  
  
Julia sat up straight. "You can access the Darglan computer core in the new Facility?"  
  
"I think so. You'll know in a minute if I can't." Jarod went to work. "Activating the data relay and tying it into the tertiary computer core."  
  
Several seconds passed with nothing happening.  
  
Naturally, it was only when Julia began to relax that everything went crazy.  
  
  
  
  
The lights on the control surfaces activated. "The relay is functioning," Data stated. "The computers are coming online."  
  
After several moments a holographic figure popped into existence above the central station. It had the orange coloring and tall skull of a Darglan. It spoke in an alien language, and those words were auto-translated. "Unauthorized access detected. Damage to computer systems not repaired, cannot implement proper Control procedures. Reverting to prior commands. Re-initializing quarantine procedures."  
  
The screens locked down and showed a simple countdown. Caterina swallowed. "That's not good," she said.  
  
"What?"  
  
"The system's triggering something through the Facility power systems."  
  
"It would appear to be a powerful burst, although I cannot determine what energy would be found within." Data looked up from his tricorder. "But at the projected levels, it will cause fatal cellular damage to everyone in the Facility."  
  
"Then stop it," Robert insisted. "Try to wake up the AI, let us know we're friendly…"  
  
"Aurora _to Dale. Whatever you're doing down there, you need to stop!_ "  
  
Robert quickly answered Julia with a "What? What's wrong?"  
  
" _Something's getting into the computer systems. It's trying to trigger our self-destruct!_ "


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future is at stake for the crew of the ASV Aurora in their fight to keep the ancient Darglan Facility out of Reich hands.

On the bridge of the _Aurora_ , the lights were flickering in and out. Jarod was at work on his station. "Whatever this is, it's smashing through the computer security we set up like it's nothing. Like it knows every possible defense in our systems and is defeating it!"  
  
Alert klaxons were still going off. "Then cut the connection," Julia ordered.  
  
Jarod worked quickly. His only result was a harsh beep from the console. "We're being locked out. I can't stop it! I…"  
  
There was a sudden change in the displays. Everything seemed to stabilize. "Jarod?"  
  
Before Julia could suggest it was his doing, Jarod quickly said, "That wasn't me. I'm picking up increased activity in the tertiary auxiliary core. A program is running using the core. It's uploading into the Facility systems."  
  
  
  
  
Everyone watched as the hologram flickered and shifted. "Warning, warning, intrusion into systems. Data control being overridden…" The hologram flashed out briefly. When it came back, it seemed more sedate. "Off-site computer processing restoring program to normal function. Off-site Control software initializing."  
  
The lights in the Facility came online. The hologram remained as it was for several moments before it shifted into another form. One that was evidently Human.  
  
And familiar too.  
  
Caterina's jaw dropped open. She stared in disbelief. Robert watched tears form in her eyes.  
  
"Control," she squeaked.  
  
The flickering hologram turned to face her. "I… remember you. Caterina Delgado," it said.  
  
"You're alive."  
  
Robert swallowed. Control, the operating AI of the Darglan Facility below his family farm, had been lost with the Facility. Control was the reason he and Julia had survived the destruction of the Facility by holding the Daleks back and getting them out of the main door.  
  
"You uploaded yourself into the _Aurora_ ," Cat said. Her voice was becoming choked with emotion. "Didn't you?"  
  
"My memory is incomplete. I do not recall everything that occurred."  
  
"You're the one who gutted that Cylon virus after Jarod trapped it in the core," she continued. "And you helped us decipher the Darglan databanks we recovered."  
  
"Yes." He nodded. "I remembered you enough to know you needed my assistance, Caterina Delgado."  
  
"How much do you remember, Control?", Robert asked. "About us?"  
  
Control looked at him. "You are… accessing… accessing… Captain Robert Dale, _Starship Aurora_. According to files you were of the Facility as well. I have no direct memory of this. My apologies."  
  
"We'll get your memories back," Cat insisted. "We'll make you like you were before!"  
  
"I am afraid that is not possible. Not on your ship. The _Aurora_ lacks the computer processing to properly contain my program and memory," Control explained. "I have restored what memory I was able to retain by merging my program with the Control program of this Facility."  
  
"Fascinating," Data remarked.  
  
"This place tried to kill us," Shepard said. "Can you tell us why?"  
  
For a moment Control did not act. "It would appear that there is damage to the computer cores of this Facility," he finally stated. "The Control program for this Facility was degraded by the loss of both vital code and processing power. It reverted to basic functionality and presumed everyone who remained to be non-Darglan. Security measures logged as the last to be enacted resumed operation. I am… pleased you were not harmed."  
  
"Thanks." Robert looked over one of the control stations. He found the control and opened the blast shields to the main docks.  
  
Everyone stared in bewilderment at what was on the other side. The docks were choked with debris. The remnant hulls of several patrol ships like the _Kelley_ and her sisters were strewn everywhere, as were other pieces of raw debris blackened by energy fire.  
  
"What happened here?", Robert asked.  
  
"The data files are incomplete," Control explained. "Much damage was done to the computer cores of the Facility. Records show that an arton cascade was employed after the base self-immolation procedures were compromised by damage. An attacking force was neutralized, as were the remaining Darglan crew. Disintegration was immediate."  
  
"Who was attacking them?", Cat asked. "The Shadows?"  
  
"That data is not available."  
  
"You said remaining crew," Shepard said. "What happened to the rest?"  
  
"They escaped with the Emergency Combat Ship."  
  
"Where?", Robert asked.  
  
"That information is unavailable."  
  
Robert sighed briefly. So much for that hope. Plus an Emergency Ship might have indicated a dock they could bring ships into. With that thought he asked, "What are the states of the jumpgates? Can we bring ships into the facility?"  
  
"All gates were destroyed to prevent use by the Enemy," Control informed them succinctly.  
  
"So we can't bring ships in until we manage repairs." The more he thought about it, the more Robert believed this was going to culminate in blowing the place up. As much as he'd rather not.  
  
He looked to Meridina. "Have the security and engineering teams directed to the storage rooms and workshops. If they find anything worth salvaging, I want it beamed up."  
  
Meridina nodded and left to direct those efforts.  
  
Robert keyed the multidevice on his left forearn. "Dale to Lucero."  
  
" _Lucero here._ "  
  
"What is your progress on those charges?"  
  
" _We're coming up on the field generation chamber now._ "  
  
"Keep me informed. Dale out." He looked around. Whatever he thought, he couldn't keep the apprehension out of his mind. Tension filled him.  
  
"Rob, what's wrong?", Caterina asked.  
  
"I'm not sure," he admitted. "What's your progress on uploading the data to the _Aurora_?"  
  
"We're still at just two percent," she revealed. "I might have to store some of the data in here on the backups I brought along. We only have so much computer space on the _Aurora_ , you know."  
  
"Right. Well, no matter what, keep that coming." He looked away from her and toward the door.  
  
Despite everything remaining quiet, he fought down the urge to reach for his pulse pistol. Maybe it was the feeling he had in the air, maybe the deaths that had happened so many thousands of years ago… but this place made him feel tense, frightened, in a way he had never known before.  
  
"You look tense, Captain." Shepard's voice cut through those feelings. He turned his head and faced the elite soldier, still cradling her assault rifle in her arms. "Is something wrong?" There was something in her tone that made it clear that there had better be something wrong for him to be acting like he was.  
  
"I just have a bad feeling," Robert admitted. "Like something's about to happen."  
  
That got him a nod in reply.  
  
  
  
  
The activity level on the _Aurora_ bridge hadn't changed since things had returned to normal. Julia remained in the command chair to watch the planet spin quietly below them. Her thoughts were on what the others had said in their last update. Control… alive all this time, trapped in their computers, just a shell of his old self. An unknown enemy that the Darglan had killed themselves to eject from the Facility.  
  
There was a tone from Jarod's board. "We're getting a hail. It's from Admiral Maran."  
  
"Put him on."  
  
The screen showed the Gersallian admiral. As he appeared on the screen there was a burst off static. "Aurora, _do you read?_ "  
  
"We do, Admiral," Julia stated. She was already standing up.  
  
" _Where is Captain… never mind._ " Maran shook his head. " _That's not important. An enemy fleet is counter-attacking us at New Austria. We have the upper hand here. But we detected several enemy squadrons bypass our battle and warp on toward your position. Councillor Kurn's squadron is in no shape to intercept them and my ships are too busy holding this system. We expect you have twelve hours before their lead elements arrive at Gamma Piratus._ "  
  
Julia sighed. "Damn."  
  
" _Consider your orders confirmed on the matter of that Facility, Commander. We need for it to be destroyed._ "  
  
"Understood, Admiral. _Aurora_ out."  
  
The channel cut. Julia immediately opened one to Robert. "Captain, I've got bad news. Admiral Maran says we've got a Reich force only half a day from arriving. We've been ordered to destroy the Facility."  
  
There was a sigh on the other end. " _Understood._ "  
  
  
  
  
Kane's lead Marines were the first to step into the generator chamber. Lucy followed up behind them and looked around for the appropriate place for her charge. She was heading toward one promising spot when her multidevice activated. " _Dale to Lucero_."  
  
"Lucero here, Captain."  
  
" _Our orders to destroy are confirmed. Set the charges._ "  
  
"Understood." Lucy let out a reluctant sigh and went to work.  
  
As she did, the hairs on her neck began to stand up. "Commander Kane, Commander Worf?", she said.  
  
"Yes, Lieutenant?", Worf answered.  
  
"You might want to take up defensive positions." Lucy activated the display to begin setting the naqia charge. "Because I think things are going to go pear-shaped really fast…"  
  
  
  
  
Laurent pulled his fighter into orbit over the hot first planet of the Gamma Piratus system, a "Demon"-type planet. At this range the system star dominated his view and would be shining directly on him if not for the fighters arriving in the shadow of the planet itself. His flight sensors were showing bursts of interference. Given the speeds a fighter could go at, this was bad news to say the least. "Xui, what can you do about this interference?"  
  
"The planet's mass is composed of several exotic elements, including trace elements of naqia and element zero," Xui replied. "The solar radiation may be interacting with these elements to create disruptions in our systems. There's nothing I can do."  
  
Laurent nodded. As they flew on, a thought occurred to him. "Ensign, this interference field. Could ships hide in it?"  
  
"Well, sir… maybe?," she answered. "Our proximity to the star might help hide them from subspace sensors and other long range sensors. Especially if they're inside the atmosphere."  
  
Laurent's fists tightened on his flight stick. "Able 3, this is Able Leader. Hang back."  
  
Skydancer's answer was immediate. " _Yes sir. What's the problem?_ "  
  
"I have a suspicion. Keep your distance."  
  
Laurent fired his drives to full and started to round the planet toward the sunny side. Laurent lowered his orbit until he began to skirt the atmosphere of the planet. The fierce energy in that atmosphere, heated as it was by the system's sun, was putting increasing strain on his Mongoose despite its protective shielding. "See anything, Ensign?", Laurent asked.  
  
"Nothing sir." A few moments passed. "Still nothing. Sir, I… wait."  
  
"Ensign?"  
  
"There is some sort of power signature ahead. Wait… there's another… more..."  
  
Laurent began to alter his course in the atmosphere.  
  
It was what saved his life.  
  
A green energy beam sizzled through space beside him, hitting nothing. More beams came as he pulled the fighter up and away. "Able Leader to Able 3!"  
  
There was no immediate response. Laurent repeated himself. "Able Leader to Able 3! Do you copy?!"  
  
"Sir, with all of this interference and enemy jamming, I doubt they can hear us."  
  
Laurent gritted his teeth and twisted the Mongoose hard. It shuddered at a glancing hit from a disruptor blast. His right shield icon went red; even a glancing hit had nearly blown the shields out. "Abla 2, break off! We need to get out of here and warn the _Aurora_!"  
  
Both fighters continued to lift out of the atmosphere and pull away. More green shots came at them. Some smaller than the others. "Enemy fighters on our six!", Xui shouted.  
  
Laurent's free hand raced over his side control panel. The small naqia micro-reactors built into the fighter as backup power began shifting their output into the engines and shields. He continued to evade and twist as much as he could, avoiding several hits. But the enemy fighters were closing and closing fast. They had the same idea he did, but they could afford to devote even more to engines without his weapons being able to hit them.  
  
" _Able 2 here!_ " The pitched voice of Lt. Kerman was accented, although not as severely as ordinary Kerbal attempts at speaking English. " _Let me hold them off for you!_ "  
  
The thought had crossed Laurent's mind. The Kerbal pilot was a daredevil and could possibly buy him time to get out of atmosphere. But he still wouldn't last long. It might not buy him enough time. "Negative on that, Able 2." A thought crossed his mind. "Able 2, stand-by to execute about-face maneuver!"  
  
" _Yes sir!_ "  
  
Laurent judged the distance to the enemy fighters. His instruments weren't reliably accurate in this situation and denied him the ability to be completely accurate.  
  
But for what he had in mind, that might not be necessary.  
  
Sweat was coating his brow by the time Laurent twisted his flight stick. His free hand was already working his power controls.  
  
The Mongoose turned nearly on a dime, displaying its extraordinary maneuverability. By the time the turn was executed, power was shunting from engines to weapons.  
  
Before the Nazi fighters could react, the two Mongoose fighters opened up on them with full barrages of their phaser banks and cannons. Streams and beams of amber light did little to add to the luminous atmosphere around them, almost fading in with the backgrounds. Explosions flowered ahead of them. With their shields turned down, the Nazi fighters couldn't withstand the fire they had thrown at them. Those that didn't get destroyed by the phaser fire or missiles broke away to evade.  
  
That gave Laurent the opening he needed. He began diverting power back to engines and twisted away again. As he did, another massive shape started rising from the clouds.  
  
Its hull was dark, virtually black. All save the Nazi swastika insignia emblazoned upon it.  
  
Laurent recognized the type immediately. "It's a dreadnought," he muttered. "God help us all." By this point his Mongoose was pointed away from the planet again and he hit full engines on it. More enemy fire started coming their way again, taxing their evasive abilities to their limits.  
  
The atmosphere seemed to fade away on all sides. As it did so, Laurent started shouting into his fighter's commlink. " _Aurora_ , emergency! Enemy dreadnought is present, i repeat, enemy dreadnought!"  
  
There was nothing but a crackle of static from the other end. They still weren't close enough.  
  
"Enemy ships are coming out of the atmosphere!", Xui reported.  
  
Laurent was too busy evading another enemy fighter to respond. He twisted, he turned, he corkscrewed, he did anything he could to shake the enemy pilot. Warning indicators appeared as green energy streamed beside them. A loud tone told him that the engines had taken damage. The enemy fire was breaking through his shields.  
  
Amber light erupted ahead of him. " _Able Leader, I've got your six!_ " Skydancer flew her Mongoose in around his and continued to fire. She gained a hardlock and missiles fired from her hardpoint wings. They crossed the distance on fiery white wakes and slammed into the fighters pursuing him.  
  
"Able 3, form up. We need to get to communication distance!" Laurent checked his engine status. He'd lost ten percent of his power. But the Mongoose had a lot of acceleration power in its impulsors, enough that the loss of even ten percent was not dooming him. He put acceleration to full and continued to rocket away from the enemy ships now coming out of the planetary atmosphere.  
  
And as he did, Laurent was still calling out into the radio, waiting for a confirmation beyond the static he was getting now.  
  
  
  
  
_Käpitan-des-Raums_ Joachim Lamper observed the fleeing fighters from the bridge of his cruiser, the _Sedan_ -class _Reich's Glory_. "How wide is our jamming field?", he asked _Leutnant_ Jensen, his communications officer. "Are we still blocking them?"  
  
" _Ja_ , _Herr Käpitan_ ," Jensen answered. "But they are nearing the edge of the field's effective range."  
  
"Then we are losing the element of surprise." Lamper considered his options. Which were more limited than he would prefer. He could not move independently here, not with _Oberführer_ Eicke from the SS-staffed dreadnought _Eichmann_ watching the entire squadron like a hawk. "Put _Eichmann_ on."  
  
" _Jawohl_ , sir."  
  
The bridge of the dreadnought appeared on his viewer. Lamper showed no intimidation at the collection of SS men, with their genetic engineering to become the "epitome" of the Aryan Race, who looked at him with their blue eyes. " _Oberführer_ , I propose that we execute a warp jump to the space of the third world. Our presence will be made clear to them shortly."  
  
Eicke had made no pretense of how low he viewed Lamper. The feeling was understandably mutual; Lamper had his own long-standing grievances with the SS, the self-proclaimed guardians of the Party, and the schemes they performed to improve their own power.  
  
But whatever Eicke felt of Lamper, he clearly knew a good idea when he saw it. " _I am in agreement, Käpitan. All ships prepare for war jump._ "  
  
Lamper nodded to his helmsman, who obeyed without a word. _The time has finally come_ , he pondered. _We first met as allies. Now, Captain Dale, we meet as enemies._  
  
  
  
  
It was several minutes after the last group left the mound that it was disturbed yet again. Now heavy metal boots crunched into its soil and crushed grass beneath them. Wearing his own light armor, Fassbinder looked over his men and then to the mound. Two of his men were still carrying the device Eicke had given him, a stealth field generator that had hidden them all from view and scanners as if they were on a _Doenitz_ -class raider. Beside him, the nervous sensor officer from the _Reich's Glory_ , _Leutnant_ Rabe, was actively scanning the mound. They approached where the _Aurora_ crew had activated a transporter of some form.  
  
"What can you find, _Leutnant?_ "  
  
Rabe gave a wary look to Fassbinder, who didn't deign a return glance. The young officer felt put off, the only non-SS man present and with the features to prove that distinction. Obviously a man aware he was around the genetically superior. Fassbinder wondered if Rabe had non-Aryan blood in his family background. Given his clear affection for that little _untermensch_ girl from the _Aurora_ , it was something to check for later.  
  
Just before Fassbinder could bark at him for remaining quiet, Rabe spoke. "There is some sort of pressure plate here, _Obersturmbannführer_. This way." He led them over to a patch of ground and set his foot on it. Rabe clearly put his weight on it for several seconds. But nothing happened.  
  
Fassbinder gestured to one of the enlisted men under his command. The SS _Scharführer_ , a _Panzergrenadier_ wearing his heavy powered armor, stomped over and stood on the plate. After several moments Rabe looked at him and shook his head. "It does not work."  
  
"It worked for them," Fassbinder growled. He went up to it. "I refuse to believe it will not work for us. It cannot…"  
  
His feet were both on the spot and putting their full weight on it. There was a sudden surge of energy and light around them.  
  
The valley, the mound, it all disappeared. They were all crammed into one chamber now. Fassbinder looked to Rabe, who was looking over his scanner. "We are many kilometers underground," he confirmed. "I am detecting warping in the fabric of space-time coming from that door."  
  
"Well." Fassbinder smiled. His heart was swelling with a feeling of imminent triumph. More than that; for him to be the one that these machines recognized… that meant something. He didn't know what it meant yet, but he knew it was something glorious. Something that would raise him to new heights.  
  
With thoughts of victory and glory in his mind, Fassbinder stepped forward.  
  
  
  
  
Julia's first indication that something was wrong was when Laurent didn't give a check-in upon completing his orbit of the first planet. Now, minutes later, she was asking, "Still nothing?"  
  
"I don't even have his transponder," Jarod said. "There must be interference from…"  
  
Before Jarod could finish that sentence, a loud crackle came from the speakers. Laurent's voice began to form through the chaotic sounds coming in. " _...immediately! I re-.... warships… out of first planet!_ " Laurent's voice began to grow stronger through the static. " _The enemy fleet is…_ "  
  
That was all Julia needed to hear. "Code Red!", she bellowed. She reached over and secured her seat harness. "Prepare for…"  
  
"Subspace radiation spike!"  
  
Ensign al-Rashad had barely finished that second word when several ships appeared on the viewscreen, a fair distance away from them. Julia recognized the profiles of the three _Dresden_ -class cruisers, a _Sedan_ -class, some _Z-2500_ s, and…  
  
"Enemy dreadnought on sensors," al-Rashad declared. "Engine signature matches the profile of the _Eichmann_."  
  
"Evasive maneuvers!", Julia shouted. "Fire at will!" She pressed the key to re-open her channel to the surface. "Attention ground team. We have an enemy squadron in orbit…"  
  
  
  
  
" _...we have an enemy squadron in orbit…_ "  
  
Julia's words had just reached Robert's brain, with their full implications, when another voice came over the comm line. " _They're here!_ ," one voice screamed. " _Enemy…_ " The report ended with an abrupt scream.  
  
"The main door has been opened by someone with a genetic profile marked as Aterran," Control stated.  
  
"Close it!", Robert shouted. "And beam them out of here!"  
  
"I have closed the door. But the damage to the systems of this place prevent me from exercising security controls or operating the transporter systems." Control paused a moment. "The enemy is advancing into the Facility."  
  
Meridina and Shepard went to the door. "We'll hold them off as long as we can," Shepard called back. "And maybe that will buy time for Lucero and her group to set off the bombs."  
  
Cat looked up from her seat. "I'll see if I can get a remote access to the transporter systems going. Data, can you help me with this?"  
  
"I will begin accessing the…"  
  
Robert allowed his people to get to work. He walked to the door to join Meridina and Shepard. Meridina looked at him. "You should remain here," she said. "With the others."  
  
"You'll need every gun you can spare," he answered.  
  
"And we'll need someone here in case the foe gets around us," she pointed out.  
  
Robert glowered at that. He hated to admit she had him there. "Alright," he said.  
  
And so he remained at the door while the others went off to join the battle.  
  
  
  
  
Fassbinder stepped over the dead body of one of the Alliance crew his men had just wiped out. He looked around in the chamber, the first large room his people had come to. The Alliance had set up transport enhancers of some sort. He looked to Rabe. Rabe shook his head. "Sorry, _Herr Obersturmbannführer_ , but their transporters don't work the same way ours do."  
  
"It does not matter." He turned to his men and nodded. Four SS technicians, wearing light combat armor, moved in and knocked over the Alliance devices. They reached to their packs and, with proper Aryan efficiency, began to set up their own.  
  
A tone sounded. Fassbinder pressed the button on his wrist that activated his commlink. " _We have engaged the_ Aurora," Eicke informed him. " _What is your status?_ "  
  
"We have entered the alien base," Fassbinder replied. "It is quite remarkable. It is larger on the inside than on the outside."  
  
" _Secure it from the Alliance at all costs. Do not let them destroy it._ "  
  
" _Jawohl_." Fassbinder cut the communication. "Scan for the Alliance's teams," he ordered Rabe. "They will undoubtedly seek to rob us of this prize."  
  
While Rabe did so, Fassbinder turned his attention to his technicians. The final transport enhancer was up. "The ground base confirms a transporter lock, sir," one of them said. "They are transporting now."  
  
Ripples of gray-toned energy formed into the figures of more of the SS troopers Fassbinder had brought to the planet and hidden. " _Leutnant_ , do you have any indications of where the enemy is?"  
  
"Spread about the base, _Herr Obersturmbannführer_. The largest concentrations are on this floor and another three floors down."  
  
Fassbinder looked to _Sturmbannführer_ Krager. "Send squads to track them down and kill them. Leave nothing to chance."  
  
" _Jawohl._ "  
  
  
  
  
The _Aurora_ continued to shake as enemy fire poured into their shields. "Shields down to sixty-four percent," Jarod warned Julia.  
  
Julia heard him. But she didn't speak in reply. She was too focused on the tactical situation and how bad it was. The fighters were matching the Nazi fighters at least, but the cruisers alone would give the _Aurora_ a hard fight. That dreadnought made this impossible. "We have to back off," she said to Locarno. "Give us some space, Lieutenant."  
  
"Aye, Commander."  
  
Julia triggered the comm line to Robert. "They're too much. I have to pull the ship back or we'll lose the _Aurora_."  
  
" _We've got problems of our own down here_ ," Robert said. " _They've gotten into the Facility. I'm not sure how yet._ "  
  
Julia knew what that meant. If they had transporter enhancers of their own, then backing off would give the enemy plenty of opportunity to send even more troops into the Facility. "Can you evacuate?", she asked. "Maybe we can just beam an armed torpedo down."  
  
" _They've already overrun the areas near the entrance, including where the transport enhancers were located._ " Robert's voice betrayed his irritation. Julia figured he was angry with himself for not placing the enhancers elsewhere. " _And the Facility transporters are out of action. Cat and Data are working on any way we can find to get them functional again._ "  
  
Julia swallowed. She looked back to Angel who was busy firing at their enemies. But she heard what was being said. She knew what it meant. Just as Julia knew how much it would hurt her to hear her next command.  
  
"I'll keep the ship clear," she said. "I won't be able to interfere with them sending reinforcements down, though."  
  
" _Understood. Do what you need to._ "  
  
"Ju… Commander, you can't…"  
  
"I'm sorry," Julia said to Angel. "But we won't do them any good if we stay here and get blown to pieces."  
  
As if to punctuate her point, a super-disruptor blast from the _Eichmann_ struck the ship. "Direct hit, shields down to forty-five percent," Jarod said. "I'm losing cohesion on the port shields."  
  
"Get us to the other side of the planet," Julia ordered. "Make them chase us."  
  
"Yes sir!" Locarno's hands moved swiftly over his controls. The _Aurora_ 's engines powered up and she raced toward the darkening horizon of Gamma Piratus 3.  
  
As they did so, the Nazi warships continued to close.  
  
  
  
  
Eicke watched the _Aurora_ move into the shadow of the planet and snarled. " _Herr Oberführer_ , the enemy ship is masking our weapons with the planet. We can no longer fire on them."  
  
At the report of his gunnery officer, another suggested, "Shall I detach the cruisers to pursue?"  
  
Eicke thought on that. But his cruisers alone may yet be unable to defeat the _Aurora_. And he was not in the mood to let them go. Not after dreaming of this encounter for months. They had humiliated him when they saved the last Jews from his reach. To let them go now was a betrayal, nothing more or less."  
  
"Pursue them," Eicke ordered. "All SS ships, pursue and destroy!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future is at stake for the crew of the ASV Aurora in their fight to keep the ancient Darglan Facility out of Reich hands.

The forces under Fassbinder were coming down the main corridor that led to the central control room. And as this corridor crossed several others connecting to other parts of the Facility, it provided defenders several locations to take cover.  
  
A group of the _Aurora_ security forces, with some of Kane's Marines, were holding one such intersection. Private Hakimzade looked around the corridor down to the next one. More of the _Panzergrenadier_ armored troopers were stomping their way, moving over the bodies of their own and of a couple off the Alliance defenders. Hakimzade fired the missile launcher fitted to her combat suit's left arm. The missile slammed into one of the _Panzergrenadiers_ and exploded,. The armor fell over.  
  
But there were more coming. Too many for Hakimzade and Private Markham, the other member of her fire team, to suppress them from their cover. "They keep coming…" Markham protested.  
  
From behind them there was a burst, accompanied by a crack of thunder. Shepard rocketed down the corridor, past their cover, and slammed into the leading enemy. The armored trooper stumbled backward from the impact of Shepard's charge and its biotic power. He started to bring a weapon over but could not do so in time. The gun in Shepard's hands went off with another crack of thunder. The Crusader shotgun in her hand did as advertised. With a sharp crack the solid slug it fired slammed into and then through the Nazi power armor and to the soldier inside. He let out a sickly sound and collapsed. Blood rushed from the break in the armor.  
  
The next foe lined up a shot on Shepard as she turned to fire. Before he could even imagine taking the shot invisible force slammed into him. Meridina moved ahead at a speed that no human could match. The blue sheen of her _lakesh_ seemed to almost glow in the light as it came up. The blade clanged against the alloyed armor of the enemy suit and, with effort, Meridina pushed the gun arm out of Shepard's way completely. Shepard pivoted with her foot and fired the shotgun again. The shot blasted a hole into the enemy armor and into the enemy within. He gurgled out a curse before collapsing.  
  
"Behind me!", Meridina shouted. Shepard took a step back. Just in time, as more enemies were approaching them and firing. Meridina's _lakesh_ moved like a blur of ghostly-blue light. The blade's protective EM field started deflecting disruptor blasts back toward the enemy. One of the light-armored SS troopers cried out as his own disruptor beam slammed into his chest and knocked him backward.  
  
The volume of fire was increasing. Shepard knew Meridina wouldn't be able to sustain her defensive maneuvers for long. She hooked her Crusader at the base of her back and pulled the Avenger over her right shoulder. It expanded from carrying mode to firing mode with the press of a button. Shepard took in a breath and turned to face the enemy. Her finger squeezed the trigger and the Avenger roared to life, sending its mass effect-accelerated rounds down-range into the enemy. The _Panzergrenadier_ armor suits were only dinged by the assault rifle's fire. The light-armored foes, however, could only take so many hits. A couple went down from sustained barrages. After mentally counting down the seconds, Shepard moved back behind Meridina, who was enjoying the respite from the relaxed enemy fire. "How long until your weapon cools down?", she asked.  
  
"Several more seconds. But I've got other plans." Shepard curled her left hand into a fist and felt the dark matter surge into being around her, generated by the eezo in her body and channeled with the help of the implant in her brain. She threw the bolt of dark matter outward,. Bolt after bolt of dark matter thundered across the floor and slammed into one of the heavy armored SS troops. The armor kept the soldier inside from being harmed directly, but it couldn't stop the biotic energy from knocking the armor-wearer back and onto his back.  
  
Behind them Hakimzade and Markham were coming around the corners with their other Marines. The volume of fire behind Meridina increased. Her defensive needs eased with this reinforcement. Pulse fire and Shepard's assault rifle forced the enemy to take cover themselves. One enemy _Panzergrenadier_ who failed to was hit by heavy fire from both Hakimzade and Markham, killing the SS trooper instantly.  
  
Meridina could feel the surge in her allies. Their morale was increasing, they believed they were winning. She restrained such impulses for the distraction they could become. She had to remain focused on what was to come, what might happen.  
  
While most of her focus was on deflecting enemy fire, she did what she could to sense the enemy's mind-state. What was he thinking? What would he do? Were they about to be overrun? Would…  
  
There were cries behind her. The squad in the rear were crying out for reinforcement.  
  
Shepard was the first to speak on what was happening. " _Fall back!_ ," she cried out. " _They're flanking us!_ "  
  
Moments later there was an explosion. Two of the Marines and one of her security people went flying through the corridor behind them. Shepard and Meridina turned toward this new threat. Green and blue fire was filling that junction now, from the friendly forces on one side and the flanking enemy on the other.  
  
Blue energy surged around Shepard and, within a moment, she was rocketing forward again. A human projectile which crashed, with all of her biotic fury, into the enemy heavy armored trooper coming out of the side corridor behind them. She didn't have time to switch to her shotgun. Shepard brought the Avenger up and poured fire into the helmet of the enemy armored trooper. It might not penetrate, but it would buy her and Meridina necessary moments.  
  
Around them, the others joined their retreat. Green energy continued to blaze, now on two sides. One beam sizzled just past Meridina's head. A burst slammed into Shepard's side and caused blue energy to flare up around her. She growled in pain and dropped to a knee. Freed from the fire of Shepard's overheating Avenger, the _Panzergrenadier_ brought its massive armored fist down to grab Shepard. She rolled away, ignoring the injury caused, and summoned more biotic power. It took much of what Shepard had at the moment to generate the warp field that gripped the heavy armored trooper. He thrashed for a moment from the sensation of the dark matter trying to tug his molecules apart.  
  
This bought Meridina the second needed to come in with her _lakesh_. She drove the blade with all of her will into a vulnerable point where the armor's torso plates interlocked. The soldier within screamed from having the blade pierce straight through into his ribs. Meridina pulled her bloody weapon out and called upon her power, using it to push her wounded foe into his own allies. Two of the light-armored troopers were bowled over. One was made easy pickings for Hakimzade's weapons.  
  
"Fall back to the next junction!", Shepard shouted. She grimaced as she stood. Seeing Meridina's concerned look, she waved it off. "My biotic field caught most of it. Just a little burn."  
  
"If you insist. The medics may still want to look at you."  
  
"They can after we surv… look out!"  
  
Shepard shoved Meridina out of the way just as a disruptor bolt would have slammed into her back. She lined up her assault rifle and riddled an SS trooper with rounds. Meridina recovered from the push and made it to her feet in one quick move. She reached out with her power and threw the pursuing enemy back. "Go!", she cried to the other remaining troops. "Retreat!"  
  
They did so, firing all of the way.  
  
  
  
  
Weapons fire was proving an undesired distraction for Lucy as she sought to arm the final naqia charge. She had to control the pounding in her heart at realizing what was likely to happen. With the enemy pinning them they would have to detonate the bombs here.  
  
After all of this, she was probably going to die.  
  
Kane seemed more interested in dealing with the attacking enemy than that. He had joined his squad and Commander Worf near the door. The Klingon leaned out the door enough to fire off several shots from his phaser rifle. A distant cry confirmed he'd gotten a solid hit. He barely evaded the return fire. "Lieutenant, how much longer?", Kane asked.  
  
Lucy ran her hand over the controls for the last charge. It operated under the same principle of what Cat had done to the _Kelley_ in their original Facility; destabilize naqia and then cause it to detonate. "I've got the final destabilization setting calculating now," she said. "Give me another minute at least!"  
  
"Right. You heard her, Marines! Give her a minute!" Kane left cover long enough to fire an RPG from his underslung launcher on his rifle. There was a distant explosion. "Thanh, now!"  
  
The Vietnamese woman nodded and stomped into position with her heavy powered armor suit. Lucy wasn't watching as the muzzles on its arm-mounted guns opened up, pouring streams of sapphire pulses into the hallway leading into the generator room. She heard the sound of a missile firing and another explosion further away.  
  
A feeling filled her, a tingle that brought Lucy's attention to the door briefly. She reached out with her power… just in time to grab the enemy grenades sailing through the door. She tossed them back down the hall. There were more cries of surprise and a series of explosions.  
  
"Nice one, Lieutenant," Kane said, pouring more fire out of the door. He moved into cover before return fire could hit him.  
  
He was kind enough not to ask her for her progress. Lucy thanked him by going even faster.  
  
  
  
  
Fassbinder checked over the casualties on his advance forward, toward what he figured to be the major control area for this alien place. The _Aurora_ crew were fighting with the courage of the desperate. And it would not mean a thing.  
  
He was far more perturbed with his own losses. The enemy's desperation was giving them some success in the fights. His men may need reinforcement to ensure a rapid fall of the base. He keyed his comm-line open. "Oberführer _, I am in need of the backup company._ " When there was no immediate reply, he went to speak again.  
  
" _We are out of position, Fassbinder_ ," Eicke finally said. " _You will have to make do with the remaining forces on the_ Reich's Glory _for this operation._ "  
  
Fassbinder felt frustration at that. Eicke's desire to destroy the _Aurora_ was interfering with the battle. But he knew better than to reply with anything but a hearty " _Jawohl!_ " He pressed a different key on his wrist. "Fassbinder to _Reich's Glory_. Transport down your SS detachment, coordinates are being provided by enhancer."  
  
  
  
  
Lamper heard Fassbinder's order and frowned. He had remained in position while Eicke went off chasing the _Aurora_. But given that the enemy gunship had yet to make its appearance, dropping his shields to beam troops down was too much of a risk.  
  
But yet… he was under orders. He could not disobey.  
  
After a few moments Lamper realized what he wanted to do. "On my orders, lower shields for two seconds and raise them," he said. "Activate the transporters but do _not_ send any of our people down yet."  
  
As always, his men did nothing to disagree. They trusted him on these matters, even if they didn't understand his orders.  
  
  
"The SS is ready to transport down, sir," _Frigattenkapitän_ Falk informed him.  
  
Lamper nodded. "Well then…. Initiate my orders… now!"  
  
  
  
  
The _Reich's Glory_ lowered its shields. Its transporter systems initialized.  
  
That was when the _Sladen_ pounced.  
  
Commander King's ship decloaked and fired immediately. Phaser bursts from the forward cannons raced ahead of the blue-white solar torpedoes, all impacting on…  
  
… _Reich's Glory_ 's raised shields.  
  
"Clever bastard," King muttered to herself. Disruptor fire came in within moments, plentiful from the enemy heavy cruiser. [i}Sladen[/i] made several sharp maneuvers under Lieutenant Caldwell's expert piloting, evading the worst hits but still taking several.  
  
"Shields down to eighty-seven percent," Ensign Skarsgard warned from Ops.  
  
"So I see, Ensign. Maintain evasive maneuvers." Her jaw clenched. "As long as we keep fire on them, they can't risk sending reinforcements down."  
  
"Aye sir."  
  
  
  
Lamper frowned at the small gunboat ship. The vessel's crew was flying well and keeping his main disruptors from landing any hits. "Can we achieve any missile locks?", he asked.  
  
" _Nein_ ," answered _Kapitänleutnant_ Peter Weigle, the blond Mars Colony recruit at Gunnery. "They are too fast, _Herr Käpitan_."  
  
"Then do what you can. Helm, orientate our ship to give us an opening on one shield quarter. We can lower our shields briefly for transports and raise them before this enemy ship gets into position."  
  
" _Jawohl_."  
  
  
  
  
King noticed the _Reich's Glory_ shifting its position in orbit. _Ah, that's what you're doing_. "Get us on that far side, Lieutenant," King ordered. "They're trying to bring down the opposing shield face so they can begin beaming!"  
  
"Yes sir!"  
  
The _Sladen_ twisted in space and shot forward, moving across the port dorsal side of the Nazi cruiser. King watched and waited until… "Lieutenant! Break port!"  
  
Caldwell shifted the _Sladen_ to port, just in time to throw off the enemy aim and avoid taking several missile hits. The enemy missiles turned to re-acquire as enemy disruptor shots trailed up into their midst, destroyed three. The remaining missiles started racing toward the _Sladen_ again. The dorsal phaser bank stabbed amber light at them and destroyed one, then another…  
  
The third slammed into their shields. The ship shook underneath them. "Shields down to sixty-three percent," Skarsgard said. "Shock damage to Deck 1 Section D."  
  
"Have damage teams make any necessary repairs," King replied.  
  
"Commander, I've already detected a transport," Skarsgard added. "Their shields are going back up."  
  
"Damn," was King's sole, somewhat irritated response. She hoped Commander Andreys was faring better.  
  
  
  
  
Sparks erupted from the MCD at the back of the _Aurora_ bridge. "Shields down to forty percent!", Jarod shouted. "We're losing shield cohesion on the starboard side from those super-disruptor hits! Damage to several decks! We have casualties on Deck 10!"  
  
"Lieutenant, whatever evasive maneuvers you're pulling, it's not enough," Julia said to Locarno. "Divert extra power to the impulsors if you have to."  
  
"I'm giving the impulse drives everything I can," Locarno said. "I simply can't keep everything off of us."  
  
Julia recognized that already. The dreadnought was still trailing and the enemy cruisers were bracketing the _Aurora_ on all sides. She needed to change this battle, and change it soon. She thought hard about their positioning. If she could get an opening for Angela to hammer them with the bow weapons without exposing their vulnerable side shields to that Nazi dreadnought…  
  
More fire rippled across the _Aurora_ 's shields. They flared blue and then amber as phaser beams and bolts lashed out at the ship's tormentors. One of the Nazi light cruisers took a full cannon barrage to its failing shields and started to shift away, trailing atmosphere and debris from the new wound in its port side.  
  
But it kept firing.  
  
  
  
  
In the medbay Leo was ready for the arrival of the casualties across the ship. Even as the vessel continued to shake under him, he directed the incoming patients to different beds. His subordinate physicians began sorting through the wounded, determining who was in need of the most immediate care, who could wait… and who was too far gone to treat.  
  
Leo's first patient was a young woman with slightly-tanned skin, a Mediterranean complexion. Shock damage to the internals of the ship had broken a support beam and sent shrapnel into her chest and torso. She moaned from the pain until Leo finished applying the sedative and anaesthetic. The young crewwoman settled into a gentle sleep. "Nasri, prep minor OR for this one, we need to get these things out of her… wait, no!" He barged over to where one of his newest doctors was preparing to treat a wounded Gersallian. "I know they look Human, but if you yank that out you'll open the Gersallian carotid artery!" He pushed the young man's hand away. "It's too close."  
  
"But the artery is…"  
  
"...not entirely there, no, but if you jostle that thing just a few millimeters off, you could cut the adjoining blood vessel and the carotid will start gushing right into it!" Leo examined the wound. "Tag him for a regenerative patch and send him to the waiting table. He'll live."  
  
"Doctor, I think I'm losing this one…!"  
  
Hearing that plea from one of his nurses, Leo ran over to the biobed in question. As he did so, the ship nearly came out from under his feet.  
  
  
  
  
The dreadnought's gunnery officer was good. Too good. For all of Locarno's quick flying he'd directed another near-perfect barrage into their shields, this time their rear shields.  
  
"Shields now at thirty-four percent," Jarod said. "Primary generator in the rear has gone offline. Secondaries are taking up the load for now."  
  
Julia decided enough was enough. She had to change the situation. "Mister Locarno, prepare to make a hard turn, ninety degrees starboard by thirty degrees dorsal."  
  
Locarno immediately saw what she was doing. "Aye, sir."  
  
Julia looked to the enemy contacts on her tactical viewer. The distance wasn't right yet.. Not right… not right yet, come on!  
  
The ship rocked again. Sparks flew from the auxiliary station in the back. "Shields now at thirty percent!", Jarod shouted. "Hull breach in Section H, Decks 30 through 32!" He looked back at her. "Commander, I see that light cruiser you're directing us toward. But if you adjust our course further to their bow, we'll be masked from that dreadnought."  
  
"Good thinking, Commander. Mister Locarno, adjust planned course, eighty-eight degrees starboard and twenty-eight degrees dorsal instead."  
  
"Adjustment planned…"  
  
"Now!"  
  
The _Aurora_ turned in space and moved her bow upward. Her impulsors propelled her rapidly toward the enemy light cruiser. The Nazi ship poured disruptor beam after disruptor beam into her starboard shields. Blue light flickered around each shot. Missiles erupted from the enemy ship as they approached. Angel's light phasers intercepted some, but the rest got through.  
  
"Starboard shields are almost gone, we've got widespread armor and hull damage," Jarod warned.  
  
Even as he did, Angel cried out, "Firing!"  
  
Although her bow cannons weren't aligned for an accurate shot on the enemy cruiser, Angel had plenty of her best phaser arrays and pulse cannon turrets lined up with the enemy ship. The phasers pummelled the enemy ship repeatedly. Red light flickered briefly to meet the repeated barrage of amber energy.  
  
Then the _Aurora_ passed in front of the enemy ship. Locarno straightened up enough that the aft cannons came into line with it. Angel fired a full barrage and added torpedoes to it. Although she half only a third of her usual bow firepower to aft Angel's fire still proved deadly accurate. The shields of the enemy cruiser nearly buckled under the barrage they faced. The torpedo spread finished the job. Angel's aft phasers began ripping into the enemy ship's bow. The torpedo launcher there went up in flames. A phaser beam speared and destroyed a disruptor bank.  
  
But the light cruiser remained and continued to fire on them with what they had left. And while the super-disruptor fire from the _Eichmann_ halted for the moment, the fire from the other enemy cruisers didn't. They adjusted their courses to try and pin _Aurora_ in again.  
  
Julia had bought herself some time. Time to think up new options. Because the way things were going…  
  
....they couldn't win this battle.  
  
  
  
  
Robert could feel only frustration at what was unfolding around them. His comm unit filled with cries from the various squads and groups under fire. The _Aurora_ was in danger above them, fighting off a force they couldn't hope to win.  
  
And now Meridina and Shepard were coming back into the Command Room. Shepard was leaning against Meridina with a severe disruptor wound on her thigh. "They've brought in reinforcements," Shepard said. "We can't hold them any more."  
  
"Most of our people are being cut off in the side corridors," Meridina added. "The enemy is ignoring them to focus on getting here.  
  
Robert nodded. He swallowed and took in a breath. "Then we don't have any choice." He walked up to the main doors and brought up the controls. Blast doors slammed into place. He keyed his multi-device comm line to Lucy. "Lucero, this is Dale. Are those charges ready?"  
  
" _Yes sir_ ," was Lucy's reply. He could hear tension in her voice. She knew what was about to happen.  
  
He looked over to Caterina. As he did, his eyes filled with tears. _I'm sorry, Angel. Please forgive me. Please._ "Sorry, Cat," he said aloud. "I'm so sorry for bringing you."  
  
Caterina's eyes had tears too. She looked up to Control and forced a smile. "It's… okay. It has to be done. I knew it might have to be done." She swallowed. Whatever fears of death she felt… she was keeping it to herself.  
  
 _Sorry, Jean-Luc. I couldn't bring back your people to you_ was the thought that went through Robert's head when he looked to Data. He didn't say anything on that, though. There was no time. Already the blast doors were starting to turn red. The enemy was burning through.  
  
Instead, he found his courage, tapped his multidevice to add _Aurora_ to the call, and he gave the order.  
  
"Julie, get the ship out of here. Lucy, blow it all up."  
  
  
  
  
Julia heard that and felt her heart plunge into her stomach. _No_.  
  
Angel said nothing. Even as the tears formed in her eyes, all she could do to give vent to the feelings she now had inside was to push her weapons to their limit and kill as many of these bastards as she could.  
  
  
  
  
On the other end of that call, Lucy looked up to the others. One of Kane's Marines was lying on the floor. The Dorei woman looked at her with blue eyes full of pain and anguish. But there was a glint of determination in there.  
  
"I'm sorry, Commander Worf, Commander Kane," Lucy said. "This is it."  
  
Kane nodded. His expression was solemn. But not grim. "I'm ready to go, Lieutenant. Set them off."  
  
Worf nodded. He looked to Lucy and then to Kane with a small smile. When he spoke, his bass voice had lost none of its strength. "Today is a good day to die."  
  
"Oohrah, Commander Worf," was Kane's only reply.  
  
Lucy found herself whispering a prayer as she hit the final key. The bombs were now set to go off. "Five… four…" She listed the countdown as it went to zero.  
  
And then… nothing.  
  
No flash of light. No energy atomizing them right in their places. No destruction that collapsed the Facility in on itself.  
  
Absolutely nothing.  
  
After a few moments she heard Robert's voice over the line. " _Lucy,_ blow it up! Now!"  
  
"I… it's not working." She was breathless as she checked over the charges. "No… no no no…"  
  
" _Lucy! What's wrong?!_ "  
  
"The naqia… it didn't go off! The destabilization, it's… it's not enough! The naqia is still too stable…"  
  
" _Grenade!_ "  
  
Lucy turned and reached out with her power instinctively.  
  
The grenade went off.  
  
  
  
  
Above them, in orbit, Julia noticed there was no explosion yet. "Jarod, are they still there?"  
  
"They still are." He swallowed. "The naqia charges… if they didn't destabilize enough…"  
  
But there was no time to think of that. Julia noticed the light cruiser to their aft moving. It had figured out they could keep it between them and the [i}Eichmann[/i] and the SS commander had taken a new, more fanatical course of action.  
  
He was moving in to _ram_ the _Aurora_.  
  
Angel was throwing everything she had at the enemy cruiser with the aft weapons. More and more of its bow disappeared. Entire sections exploded as they were exposed to space. But the enemy vessel did not stop.  
  
Before it could hit, Locarno banked the _Aurora_ to starboard. The enemy cruiser barely missed their port nacelles. Angel let loose with the port weapons. With the light cruiser's extensive damage, it had no hope of sustaining the fury of one of _Aurora_ 's broadside barrages. Its starboard nacelle exploded violently and it spun away, leaking profuse amounts of atmosphere through its many wounds. The lights on the ship began to flicker out as it lost main power.  
  
Of course, this meant they had lost their shield. _Eichmann_ opened up on them yet again, joined by the other cruisers continuing to pelt at them with disruptors. The _Aurora_ shook violently under them as another super-disruptor hit plowed into the aft section of the ship. One of the green beams went right through the weakened aft shields and stabbed into the flight deck. The flight crew there had no chance, no prayer. They were all atomized. The handful of munitions still on the flight deck were destroyed as well.  
  
If they had been anti-matter, the entire drive section might have taken severe, crippling internal damage despite the armored deck. But naqia didn't explode like anti-matter did, not unless destabilized and energized, so the destruction was limited to damage on the decks immediately below the flight deck. Flames and wreckage spewed from the flight deck entrance and the launch tubes.  
  
On the bridge the _Aurora_ bridge were might have fallen from their chairs if not for their safety harnesses. Instead they were tossed about in them as the shock of the explosion rippled its way through the ship. "We just lost the flight deck, direct hit!", Jarod shouted. "Shock damage to multiple sections of Decks 22 through 24. Aft shields have lost cohesion, shield strength is down to twenty-one percent!"  
  
"Bring all shield generators on-line, divert all power available!"  
  
"We are trying, Commander," Ensign Mataran insisted from the Engineering Station.  
  
" _Ah cannae give ye much more, Commander!_ ," Scotty insisted, calling from Engineering. " _Our entire shield system is startin' t' fail!_ "  
  
Julia might have swallowed to gulp down fear. She might have wanted to scream in frustration that their journeys were going to end here.  
  
But she couldn't. Not here, not like this. This was _her_ ship, just as much as it was Robert's. She had named the _Aurora_. She had been the one to ensure Carlton Farmer and Scotty and the others had the resources to finish her.  
  
 _If it ends here, we're going down fighting, by God._  
  
"Target the nearest cruiser," she ordered Angel. "And give them everything we have."  
  
"Right," was Angel's response. It was more reserved, but Julia was certain she'd agree. If they were going to die Angel would want to die fighting.  
  
But she still couldn't give up. For all Julia had pride in her ship and belief in her abilities, she knew what she had to do. Their only hope to get out of this. "Jarod, get on the IU comm network."  
  
"We're on," he said after two button presses.  
  
"This is Commander Julia Andreys, commanding the Alliance _Starship Aurora_ ," she began. "We are under heavy attack and require immediate assistance. I repeat, this is a general distress call from the _Aurora_ , mayday, mayday, we are in need of immediate assistance…"  
  
  
  
  
Robert pushed Cat down behind the central holotank when the blast doors fell open.  
  
Shepard opened fire with her Crusader shotgun at the first form to come through. The solid slug it fired was too far away to get the penetration it had managed in prior uses and didn't break through to the soldier underneath.  
  
Robert got up from where he'd knocked Cat over and fired with the pulse pistol he'd brought down. His shots staggered the heavy armor suit without damaging it enough to harm the pilot.  
  
There was a whine in the air. An amber beam struck the _Panzergrenadier_ suit directly. An entire portion of the torso armor disappeared, revealing the uniformed man within. Robert fired again and the pulses killed him immediately.  
  
Data fired again immediately. His hand phaser was set to near maximum, the setting that could take down a house, and it vaporized the torso plate of the next heavy armor trooper moving in. Shepard's shotgun left a large, disgusting hole in the soldier's body when she fired it. "Wow," Shepard said from where she was in cover, at one of the stations. "And all from a handgun."  
  
Data said nothing. Robert knew, however, that this was only to buy time. He only had a few more shots at that power level before his phaser was out of energy.  
  
For a moment there was no further advance. What came through next wasn't a heavy armored trooper, though, but a pair of SS stormtroopers in light armor. Shepard's shotgun claimed another. Robert poured pulse fire into the second. The armor couldn't resist his shots, but it did prevent the occupant from dying right away.  
  
Long enough for the SS man to fire the massive weapon in his arms.  
  
A solid beam slammed into Data's torso. The impact sent him flying backward into the control consoles ringing the room. Electricity arced from him the wound and around Data's head.even before he made impact.  
  
And when it was over, there was a large, smoking, blackened mark on his torso.  
  
Just like in Robert's dream.  
  
Another pair of light-armored men came in. Shepard fired at one immediately and Robert the other. Robert's aim was thrown off by the moving trooper and he missed. And this time Shepard's aim, while still true, didn't hit anything critical. The trooper, wounded, fired at her as well. The disruptor beam slammed through her biotic field and into her shoulder, above her heart, and knocked her backward.  
  
Meridina moved forward to intercept both. Her _lakesh_ caught one disruptor blast, sent it into the wounded trooper, and then her weapon cleaved through the remaining one from shoulder to hip. Both cried out - the one sliced open more - before they went down. Meridina turned and began deflecting shots from the doorway with her _lakesh_. Inside the doorway the enemy was lining up in firing formation. At least four SS troopers were pouring fire at Meridina.  
  
At this point, Robert didn't know what to do. What was left to do? The explosions hadn't worked. Data and Shepard were down, Cat was in no shape to fight, and Meridina couldn't fight forever. And he… this wasn't his strength. He couldn't do this.  
  
That thought prompted the obvious question, from within himself. _Then why did you insist on coming down?_  
  
Because… he knew he had to be here. There was something that would happen that he had to change.  
  
Meridina, meanwhile, was forced back into cover gradually. The volume of fire she was taking was immense. Robert tried to fire at her attackers and was driven back to cover by the attempt. He checked his pulse pistol's charge. He was almost out of shots. He needed to make them count. He lifted his pistol from cover and started spraying fire in the direction of the enemy. His reply was more suppression fire, giving Meridina an opening. She stood and held her arm out. A wave of power threw the enemy firing line back.  
  
A surge of hope filled Robert. Meridina was still here, with him, fighting. With her powers, maybe they could…  
  
And then Meridina cried out. His hope sank into his stomach, along with his heart, upon seeing her get back into cover with barely enough time to avoid more fire. Her hand was over a blackened section of her armor, near the belly. When she looked at him, he could see her eyes had gone dull with pain. It was clear she could do little more from the damage the disruptor had inflicted. The only reason she was still alive was because her armor had saved her life.  
  
Desperate, Robert peeked over the holotank enough to squeeze off his last shots before his pistol went empty. He needed to put another charge clip in.  
  
But he knew it would mean nothing. They were out of time.  
  
From outside of the room a voice called out. "Your resistance was impressive, given your genetic inferiority."  
  
Robert scowled. "Fassbinder," he growled.  
  
There was a sudden laugh. "Ah. Captain Dale? How surprising. You abandoned your post to come down here? Perhaps that is why your ship is trying in vain to flee? It lacks its proper captain."  
  
"Julia is all the captain my ship needs, it's why I left her in charge," Robert retorted.  
  
"Ah yes. Your Alliance and its bizarre affectations for letting women and _untermenschen_ serve. But yet you cannot prevail on the battlefield without bringing in allies and employing trickery. In a direct battle with Aryans, this result is the same as always. Utter defeat."  
  
"You're one to talk," Robert guffawed. "Krellan Nebula was an ambush with overwhelming numbers, not a straight up fight. New Austria was more of a straight up fight. You know, the one you ran away from?"  
  
There was a harsh laugh. Robert started to peek over the holotank. Fassbinder was standing in the doorway. Robert recognized Lamper's sensors officer - he forgot his name - standing beside him.  
  
" _Herr Obersturmbannführer_ , the field _Scharführer_ s are reporting in. All enemy forces are isolated. Resistance is continuing, but they expect victory shortly."  
  
"Do you hear that, Captain?", Fassbinder asked, turning toward him. "Your people are scattered and divided. Your ship burns in orbit. You have failed. The Reich has possession of this place and its wonders. Undoubtedly we will unlock the secrets of your drive soon enough. Our defeat at New Austria will be avenged in the broken shell of your capital world. Now… surrender to me, Captain, and I will authorize mercy to your surviving people."  
  
Robert laughed at that. "Mercy from the SS. I've seen what your 'mercy' looks like. No thanks."  
  
Fassbinder shrugged. "Very well."  
  
And he turned to his men.  
  
"Kill them."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future is at stake for the crew of the ASV Aurora in their fight to keep the ancient Darglan Facility out of Reich hands.

The grenade blast was like nothing Lucy had ever felt before. It pushed at the core of her being with a violence that seemed almost alive.  
  
To her surprise, she held it. Not entirely. She couldn't constrain the entire explosion. But she could force it to go just one way.  
  
A jet of plasma roared back down the corridor. The enemy was already moving toward the door, looking to overwhelm them after the blast, and had no time to react to the sudden re-direction of their grenade. There were cries of surprise and anguish at what it did to them in their light armor.  
  
"Can you set those explosives off, Lieutenant?", Kane asked.  
  
"No," she answered. "At least, not with the necessary force. It would still kill us but the machinery in here is too well-protected for a simple naqia blast."  
  
"So can't you destabilize that stuff or whatever it was you were doing?"  
  
"I'd need to replace the hardware in the charges and I don't have the gear for that!" Lucy's mind was racing. The calculations were accurate. The same Caterina had used for the naqia in the _Kelley_ 's reactors. _Maybe the quantity of naqia influences it? Or did the emitters we built into the charges not work right?_  
  
"So you can't do anything about this?", Kane asked.  
  
"No, I can't. We're useless here. We should get back to the Control Chamber. There might be something we can do there."  
  
Worf slipped back into cover after sending several phaser shots into the hall. "That will be difficult. There are still many enemies out there."  
  
"I know." Lucy thought on the problem. And then she grinned. She picked up the naqia charge and changed the settings on it.  
  
"Lieutenant?"  
  
"We can't use these to blow the place up," she said. "So I've got something else in mind." She went over to the door and handed the charge to Worf. "Stay behind me. When I say to, hit the activation key and throw it."  
  
"You can't go out there," one of Kane's Marines said. "They'll gun you down."  
  
Lucy sucked in a breath. _Baptism by fire time, I guess._ She forced a confident smile to her face for the benefit of Kane and his Marines. "They'll _try_."  
  
She reached to her belt and pulled her new _lakesh_ out. Her thumb hit the switch and the blade extended out with its usual sharp, metallic sound. As soon as the memory metal formed completely and the EM field was glowing faint blue over the blade, Lucy entered the corridor. She focused on the training lessons Meridina had given her the prior day. What she had been told to do in these situations.  
  
Lucy felt her arms start to move without a conscious command. She let that force inside of her do that work. A green pulse slammed into her _lakesh_ blade and was sent flying into a wounded enemy. More enemy fire came and her arms moved with speed that felt super-human, meeting every blast, every shot. Some were deflected into the azure sheen of the corridors, blackening them. Other shots were returned to the enemy, not always the one firing, to the extent she was doing them more damage than she would with a rifle.  
  
But she knew she couldn't keep this up. She felt the struggle to resist all of the fire coming her way, to move where she needed to avoid the shots she couldn't stop. Eventually she would be overwhelmed. "Worf, now!", she shouted.  
  
Worf had remained behind her all this time. After three months he was still getting used to what the Gersallians could do, even considering all of the other strange beings and otherworldly powers he had seen in his time on the _Enterprise_. For just a moment he had been transfixed by the way Lucy's blade danced in the air, intercepting every disruptor shot as if it had been lobbed by a child. Her call to him broke through that and re-focused his mind. He pressed the key on the charge and hurled it over Lucy's head.  
  
Lucy saw the charge appear in her vision and focused. She couldn't use her hand to concentrate her power on it - she needed both hands on her hilt - and it required sheer raw concentration from her mind to grip the object and send it flying. It was a difficulty Meridina had prepared her for. She breathed silent thanks to Meridina for that training, all that time flipped upside down and standing on one or both hands, as her power flung the naqia charge clear. "Get back!", she shouted.  
  
Worf fell backward into the generator room. She jumped back and landed on top of him. With a sweep of her arm she forced the door closed.  
  
There was a tremendous roar on the other end of the door.  
  
Kane was looking at his sensors. And the noticeable lack of life signs on the other end now. "Damn," he muttered. "It worked." He smirked at Lucy. "You're always good at being Goddamned crazy, Lieutenant."  
  
"I try," she sighed. She wanted to laugh. She settled for a smirk. Feeling Worf begin to shift underneath her prompted her to sit up and get to her feet. "Let's get going. Rob… Captain Dale and the others will need us."  
  
  
  
  
Fassbinder's troops were moving toward them. They ignored Shepard for the moment; unconscious, she wasn't a threat. Meridina would be the first one they got to and, in her condition, she would be killed immediately.  
  
This was Robert's dream coming true. Everything here. Their failure. Had he made it into a self-fulling prophecy? Maybe he should have stayed on the _Aurora_.  
  
As he thought those things, a voice came out of his memory.  
  
 _Trust your instincts, Robert._  
  
Julia had said that. Julia. His oldest friend. His closest. They'd spent a lifetime together, growing up, understanding one another. Her opinion was the one that mattered to him more than anything or anyone else.  
  
He had to trust himself. Trust the instinct that led him to coming down here. To where he could make a difference.  
  
But how? What could he do in this situation? What…  
  
 _You know. You always have._  
  
The voice in his mind was not his. He looked to Meridina. The enemy was already coming up to the console she was leaning behind. She had mere seconds to live.  
  
 _This is why you came down, Robert_ , her voice said in his mind. _You have always known._  
  
Robert swallowed. He knew what she meant.  
  
His mind flashed back to that training simulation. A moment of panic brought on by the realism of the simulation and the power that had come from within, unbidden, in that moment. A power he had always suspected was there, ever since the nightmares had begun.  
  
He didn't want it. It was another burden on top of the others he was already carrying and a temptation. His dreams were already haunted by what it caused him.  
  
But if he didn't… then his nightmares would come completely true.  
  
 _I know you're in there_ , he said to himself. _And I need you. Whatever you are, whatever this power is… I need you._ He felt within himself for that power he had used accidentally. He had only seconds left to use it.  
  
He realized there was a warm feeling inside him now. The kind of gentle warmth you got under a blanket in the middle of a winter night, or from eating warm soup on a chilly morning. The warmth that was soothing and refreshing to the body and mind and spirit. The warmth came from within, a power that he once ignored, indeed, that he had once never even thought to look for. But it was there. It had always been there. It was ready to be used, almost eager to be used. Every ripple of it felt like an appeal saying "I am part of you, please use me. This is what I'm here for."  
  
One of the SS stormtroopers rounded the console where Meridina was. His rifle came up. She moved, as if to defend herself, but her injury was too severe. She'd never manage it.  
  
Robert reached his arm out. And when he did, he called upon the power. He reached with it to grab.  
  
The SS trooper stopped. He went rigid with shock.  
  
Robert swung his arm away from Meridina.  
  
The trooper went flying back. Fassbinder let out an inarticulate shout that ended when, presumably, the trooper landed on him.  
  
The power within him surged. It was a part of him, a piece, everything he was and yet more. He pondered, for just a moment, if this came from his very soul.  
  
But that was for later. He had to act now.  
  
Cat was staring at him. He shushed her and shifted cover. Disruptor beams scoured the floor behind him. He could sense the others in the room. Several troopers had entered and were spreading out.  
  
He leaned out from cover and pushed out with his hand. A wave of force flew forward, bordered by the holotank in the middle. Three of the enemy went flying.  
  
The other troopers were distracted. This gave him the moment he needed. He stood from behind his cover with his hand out. Another wave of force hit several more of them and sent them flying.  
  
The Nazi science officer - Rabe, Robert now realized- was already taking cover. More dangerous was the last trooper. He had been winged by the last use of power and was still standing. He was bringing his weapon up to shoot Robert.  
  
There was a thunderous roar. Blood and other stuff erupted from behind the trooper and splattered across the viewing window behind. From her place on the floor, Commander Shepard leaned up further with her shotgun steady in her arms. She was breathing hard and pain was visible in the emerald-colored eyes that looked Robert's way. But a small smirk crossed her face. "Now what?", she asked.  
  
"Now…" He turned his attention to the door, where more of the enemy was coming. "We hold them off, and think of a way to finish the mission."  
  
  
  
  
In orbit over Gamma Piratus the _Aurora_ shook viciously again. Overloads in their systems sent sparks flying from nearby consoles. Julia heard Mataran's shout of pain and wondered, again, why the fuses didn't work the way they normally did.  
  
"Shields are down to fourteen percent. We've got multiple hull breaches across the ship. The armor self-repair systems are losing effectiveness."  
  
"Any ideas, Jarod?"  
  
"None that I like," he replied.  
  
"The only thing we have left is to either jump out or warp out," Locarno pointed out. The ship rocked under them again.  
  
"Like hell," Angel hissed. She never even looked up. She was too busy unleashing every weapon she had into one of the cruisers up on their flank. Flame and debris started to erupt from the _Dresden_ -class light cruiser where she was overwhelming its shields.  
  
"No. Someone will answer," Julia insisted. "If we can just get a few ships to join us…"  
  
There was another violent rocking of the ship. Disruptor beams played across the upper starboard nacelle of the _Aurora_. The damage caused a small explosion in the nacelle, which began flickering with light until it went dead.  
  
"We just lost the upper starboard nacelle," Mataran said. "Safety systems have engaged and the plasma feed is cut. Emergency plasma venting is clearing the nacelle."  
  
 _That's a relief._  
  
"I'm starting to lose power in the impulsors," Locarno warned. "There's only so much I can…"  
  
Jarod cut him off. And as he spoke, Julia felt the cloud of doom start to lift from her expectations.  
  
"Someone's locking onto our jump drive!"  
  
Several moments later Jarod confirmed what the viewscreen was already showing. Green light pierced the fabric of reality and expanded into a vortex of energy.  
  
Julia smiled at the sight. She already knew, in her heart, what was coming through.  
  
The _Koenig_ emerged from the jump point.  
  
And much to her amazement and joy, they hadn't come alone.  
  
  
  
  
"We're clear of the vortex. New contacts on DRADIS." Gaeta's voice carried over the _Galactica_ CIC. Every crewman and crewwoman was at their action stations and ready for the fight. Hearts pounded with anticipation that had only built with the jump from their native universe. "Profiles are matching those of Reich warships provided by the _Koenig_."  
  
"Launch everything we've got." Adama looked at his plotting board.  
  
" _Pegasus_ is launching all Vipers and Raptors now," Duala reported. "Colonel Fisk is ready for engagement orders."  
  
"Focus fire on their light cruisers, let's get them out of the way."  
  
"Time to see if those engineers earned their money," Tigh mumbled.  
  
As the two Battlestars closed the range, Viper fighters shot from their launch tubes and Raptors from their launch decks. The Reich warships were turning to engage. Disruptor fire flared out and struck the shields of the two ships.  
  
When they returned fire, it was not with railguns. Thick beams of amber energy erupted from the emplacements now mounted on the bows of the large Battlestars. The powerful phaser cannons struck the light cruiser already damaged by the _Aurora_ , meeting the red of the enemy ship's shields.  
  
Under fire from the two Colonial Battlestars, the enemy cruiser had nothing left when _Koenig_ soared in at full acceleration. Her forward phaser cannons blazed to life and punched into the cruiser's thin armored hull. As flames erupted from those shots, a pair of solar torpedoes crossed the short distance and slammed into the enemy ship's rear area. The cruiser's lights began to flicker as it lost main power.  
  
The _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ fired again. Their phaser cannons punched right through the dying enemy cruiser. One of the shots hit the vessel's main reactor. A bright white fireball engulfed the _Dresden_ -class light cruiser. Only small pieces of debris remained after the fireball died.  
  
  
  
  
On the bridge of the _Koenig_ , Zack kept his eyes on the tactical display. Enemy destroyers were again racing in for the _Aurora_ , looking to deploy their shield-disruptor torpedoes. "Scare them off, April," he ordered.  
  
"Right away, sir," Sherlily answered from Weapons.  
  
The powerful forward cannons on the _Koenig_ blazed away. The lead destroyer's shields began to buckle under the onslaught until the thick phaser pulses engulfed the aft drive section of the dagger-shaped ship. It exploded in another white fireball. The other destroyers broke off, desperate to avoid the wrath of the _Koenig_.  
  
"Missiles!", Magda shouted from Ops. "The enemy dreadnought has a weapons lock!"  
  
Missiles spewed from the launcher of the undamaged _Eichmann_ and began racing toward them. "Evasive maneuvers!", Zack ordered. _Koenig_ , under Apley's able command, began to corkscrew and turn as the enemy anti-matter missiles pursued them.  
  
Said missiles died in a hail of cannon fire from a flight of Colonial Vipers.  
  
  
  
  
In the cockpit of her Viper, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace reveled in the feeling of getting a good fight in. She watched the enemy missiles explode under her cannons and those of the wing around her. The _Pegasus_ ' Vipers were spread about, helping to protect the Raptors moving in on the enemy cruisers remaining on the field. The remaining Alliance fighters were still locked in combat with their Reich counterparts. The entire fight was a furball like few she'd seen before. Death could be instant out here, even with the portable shields rigged into the Vipers now.  
  
Her systems warned her of an enemy fighter locking on. She maneuvered her Viper "upward" to avoid the first disruptor shots and fired her engines to full, looking to evade. The enemy fighter was one hell of a pilot and kept on her. Kara turned and directed her cannons on an enemy fighter engaging one of her others. Her cannons slammed repeatedly against the shields of the enemy fighter.until the continued shots started to degrade them at that spot. It fired on the Viper she was trying to protect as her cannons found its engines and sent it spiraling away, trailing flames.  
  
The Viper was lucky. She had forced her target off enough that the disruptor hits blasted off part of a wing. The pilot couldn't stay in the fight, but they could get back to _Pegasus_ at least.  
  
Her jury-rigged holographic indicator flashed red. The fighter behind her had just put enough shots into her shields that the small generator was on the verge of overload. She maneuvered sharply to continue trying to force the enemy off.  
  
Ahead of her a Mongoose fighter from the Alliance was racing in. " _Allow me, Captain Thrace_ ," said a voice she faintly remembered.  
  
Patrice Laurent's Mongoose opened up on the fighter trailing her. The fire behind her slackened. Her indicator stopped showing the presence of the enemy behind her. "Thank you, Commander," she said. "It looks like you've been busy."  
  
" _We still are_ ," he reminded her. " _We'll keep them off your people as best we can._ "  
  
"Likewise." Kara triggered her command line. "Keep them off the Raptors, people!"  
  
  
  
With the battle suddenly shifted by the arrival of _Koenig_ and the Colonial Battlestars, Julia was considering the wider tactical picture. "Focus fire on that heavy cruiser!", she ordered. Nearby the last light cruiser was taking fire from the two Battlestars and strafing runs from the _Koenig_. "Where is the _Sladen_?"  
  
"They're still engaged with the other cruiser," Jarod said. "They're trying to keep them from beaming down any more reinforcements to the Facility."  
  
"Right."  
  
As that exchange happened Locarno lined the enemy _Sedan_ -class cruiser up on the bow. Its shots streaked at them, hitting their weakening shields and slicing across armored hull. Angel returned the favor with a full barrage of the bow cannons, the bow phasers, and both torpedo launchers. The onslaught was tearing away at the enemy's shields.  
  
It also forced them to focus on the _Aurora_ , and not on the Raptors streaking in.  
  
The Colonial craft had shielding too now. Not the best, jury-rigged from spare parts meant for the shield systems being introduced to the actual full-sized ships in the Colonial Fleet, but enough to take light disruptor hits a few times. The Raptor pilots did their best evasive maneuvers coming in as they could. There were still hits. A couple were direct hits; one lucky Raptor had time to bank away with severe damage and the other became a fireball. Glancing hits caused attrition for the rest of the strike.  
  
But then it was too late. They were in optimum range. They fired their payloads.  
  
The missiles that streaked in were a mix. Some, the last to go in, were conventional atomics. They wouldn't do nearly enough damage to shields and needed direct hits on damaged hull to do the kind of damage that might knock the heavy cruiser out.  
  
But the initial wave were carrying naqia-enhanced warheads, retrofitted from the spare solar torpedoes that had been left for the _Koenig_. These weapons struck the enemy's weakening shields in a series of impacts that battered their shields down, enough that the follow-up wave of mixed warhead types slammed into the armored hull of the cruiser. After the resulting explosions had finished the _Sedan_ -class cruiser was trailing flaming debris and atmosphere into space.  
  
With their jobs done, the Raptors broke off and flew back toward the Basestars. The ships would have to lower their shields to admit them and were arraying themselves to cover one another as each did the necessary operation.  
  
The loss of her shields weakened her, but she still had weapons and they were hammering the _Aurora_. Worse still was that the enemy dreadnought had not given up on them. Another super-disruptor shot sliced along their port side, leaving a trail of damaged armor and hull breaches along their drive hull between their port nacelles.  
  
This didn't stop Angel. She opened up on the enemy cruiser with another barrage. With its shields degraded by the Raptors' attack run the _Sedan_ -class cruiser couldn't resist the _Aurora_ 's firepower. As it raced along the enemy ship its bow weapons tore into its starboard side and caused even more damage than the Raptor attack had. Once it was alongside Angel opened up with the phasers that could fire into that angle. The repeated hits to the enemy hull caused major structural damage and eliminated several power lines. The enemy ship's sublight drives began to shut down from lack of power.  
  
As they passed, the aft solar torpedo launchers sent out more spreads of torpedoes. There was absolutely nothing left for the enemy cruiser to defend itself with. It exploded.  
  
Julia noticed that the other cruiser was now a flaming wreck as well. All that was left was a dwindling number of destroyers… and the _Eichmann_.  
  
Unfortunately, as the _Eichmann_ 's next shot proved, that was still enough to win the battle for the SS forces. Its super-disruptor barrage struck at the _Aurora_ again. Without shields to resist it they took the hit on their armor. The ship shuddered hard from the impact. "Another direct hit to the drive section. Multiple sections have hull breaches."  
  
"Armor self-repair systems have fallen to sixty percent capability," Mataran warned. "Emergency forcefield systems are in place, but they won't take this abuse for long."  
  
"We still don't have the raw firepower to take out that dreadnought, we need…" Jarod's console beeped an alert to him. "We've got another ship locking on our drive. Wait... two!"  
  
The first jump point that formed appeared "above" them. When it finished forming two ships came out. Julia recognized the _Kelley_ -class hull shape of one and realized it was the _Park_ , under their friend Ibrahim Fanous. The ship behind it was something she had seen only a couple of times before; the attack ship _Eagle_ , formerly from the _Tikvah_.  
  
A second jump point formed nearby, in closer orbit of the planet. The _Starship Challenger_ , one of the _Discovery_ -class ships based on the _Aurora_ 's design, emerged from the point. As she left her jump point fighters emerged from her flight deck.  
  
Captain Madeleine Laurent appeared on the side of the main screen. A native of the Central African Republic, her voice had a thick accent as she spoke to them. " _Commander Andreys, I'm thankful we could make it._ "  
  
"Aren't you supposed to be directing the excavation of the Darglan Homeworld?', Julia asked.  
  
" _I see little point in that if these monsters win. If Command doesn't like it, they can always court-martial me. We're engaging now._ "  
  
The main weapons on the _Challenger_ opened up on the _Eichmann_. This drew the attention of the larger warship; one of its secondary disruptor banks barked a reply, a green beam of light that speared the shields of the _Challenger_.  
  
"Aurora, _this is Yonatan Shaham_ ," another voice spoke. " _I am commanding the_ Eagle _. My father sends his regards, as do the people of New Liberty._ "  
  
" _It has been a while, my friends_ ," Ibrahim added. " _Let us take up your burden._ "  
  
The two lighter ships zipped in toward the remaining SS destroyers. They were trailing the _Aurora_ while _Koenig_ helped the Battlestars finish off the last cruiser. Angel's phaser fire lashed out at them repeatedly to break up their attack runs. The SS commanders, goaded on by their commander on the _Eichmann_ , were no longer letting her rapid fire chase them off.  
  
But before they could try to further damage the wounded _Aurora_ with their weapons the two light ships engaged with their own. The thick amber pulses coming from the _Eagle_ showed that the ship had been refitted with _Koenig_ -style phaser cannons while the smaller sapphire pulses of the _Park_ were familiar, being the smaller counterparts of the _Aurora_ 's own main battery. Multiple torpedoes erupted from both ships in tandem to their energy fire.  
  
The enemy _Z-2500_ s never stood a chance. Hit after hit battered their shields into dissipation and torpedo hits gutted them. Angel's phasers added to the carnage; the heavy phaser cannons she brought to bear completely annihilated one unshielded destroyer.  
  
All that was left was the _Eichmann_.  
  
And all that the _Eichmann_ seemed to care about was destroying the _Aurora_. The SS dreadnought ignored the persistent efforts of the _Challenger_ , ignored the _Koenig_ 's strafing run on her, and the two Colonial Basestars. Their fury was directed solely at the _Aurora_. Locarno anticipated the shot from the ship's massive super-disruptor emplacements and twisted the _Aurora_. Her shields failed again under the impact; Locarno's maneuver kept the resulting shots from slamming into the center of the primary hull. They struck the port side of the primary hull instead. The local armor failed and the shots pierced the hull all the way, slicing through four decks before coming out the other end.  
  
Julia clenched her teeth at that. "If he wants us, he can come and get us. Locarno, full impulse, away from the _Eichmann_."  
  
"We have another ship locking onto our drive," Jarod said. "Jump point opening now."  
  
Again a jump point formed ahead of them. Julia wondered who it could be this time. She had been hoping for even more of a response, with unengaged ships coming to their aid. Even if spatial aspects would be off for many, making a jump to them impossible - they would simply appear partway from their position in the other universe to this system, and quite possibly in the middle of enemy space - there had to be more ships that could make the jumps.  
  
The ship that came out was framed like the _Koenig_ , although it lacked the forward-swept appearance to the nacelles. Julia was shocked to see it.  
  
The _Defiant_.  
  
A baritone voice spoke over their open tactical commlink. " _Commander Sisko to_ Aurora _, what is your status?_ " As he spoke, his image appeared in the side of the main viewer, with the bridge of the _Defiant_ visible behind him. Julia noted Sisko had grown a goatee since she'd seen him last, back in February.   
  
"We've taken a beating. That ship really wants to kill us," she replied. "Commander, I thought the Federation Council was keeping out of the war?"  
  
He kept his expression carefully neutral. " _Whatever do you mean? Ah, I see._ " Sisko turned his head to face someone off-screen. " _Major Kira, you neglected to inform me the distress call was from S4W8_."  
  
Kira's reply was a droll, " _My apologies, Commander, it slipped my mind._ "  
  
" _Remind me to reprimand you later._ "  
  
Julia let out a chuckle. "Thanks for coming, Commander. We need all the help we can get. We'll let them chase us if you want to put the boot in."  
  
" _Sounds like a plan._ Defiant _out._ "  
  
"Mister Locarno, bring us around the planet, as quickly as you can," Julia ordered. "If they want to kill us so much, let's make them work at it."  
  
"Right." Locarno went to work on his console.  
  
Bruised and battered, the _Aurora_ shot ahead of the looming dreadnought. Disruptor beams streaked after them as they moved to round the planet.  
  
  
  
  
Shepard's shotgun roared again and took the head off of one of the Stormtroopers forcing the door. The wave of force Robert generated toss the body and the nearby foe out of the door. Every sense in his head seemed to be seeing the world anew. Energy surrounded him, his own energy resonated with it, and he could use it to keep the enemy flying and off-balance.  
  
 _Is this what Lucy feels like all the time?_ , he wondered. _Meridina?_  
  
The number of enemies outside the door seemed to be slackening. He could hear gunfire further down the corridor. Had his people rallied with Fassbinder out of communication?  
  
He took a step toward the door. With a push of his arm a bulky armored _Panzergrenadier_ tripped backward. Shepard unloaded a shotgun blast to his neck. A local weakness in the armor allowed a partial penetration. Blood gurgled out of the gap in the armor and the Nazi trooper collapsed.  
  
When Robert got to the door, he could see why the enemy was no longer rushing forward as they had before. He watched Hakimzade maneuver her powered armor into place and let loose with the automatic weapon built into the suit's arm. Pulses nearly tore one of the light-armored stormtroopers apart. Amber phaser blasts struck another of the light-armored troops. Worf moved out of cover briefly to pour more fire into the enemy unit between them and Robert's position.  
  
Robert lifted his arm to use his power. But he didn't have time. He could feel the surge of energy, the bright presence, of another; Lucy vaulted over one of the remaining heavy-armored troopers and turned. Her _lakesh_ shined with an aura of pale blue light as it bit into the joint in the leg, where the armor was weakest. Sparks resulted but no breach. Lucy twirled the weapon around and thrust it in with all of her strength. Now the armor gave way with a shriek of protest. An angry growl came from the suit's occupant, who toppled over onto one leg. A missile slammed into him from the front and the SS trooper went flying. Robert could feel the trooper's life ebb and fade out in the second it took for the armor to thunk onto the blue floor.  
  
Lucy looked at him. Her eyes widened. He knew she could feel his power and essence just as he felt hers. "You… you actually did it," she said. She walked up as, around them, the resistance of the troopers here ceased. "You called on your life force."  
  
"I had to," Robert answered. "To save everyone."  
  
"I understand. I'm just…" Lucy smiled thinly. "I don't know whether to congratulate you or feel sorry for you. You've just entered a complicated world, Rob."  
  
He nodded at that.  
  
And then a bad feeling prickled up his spine. A sense of fear, anger, hatred, it all came from behind him. There was a cry of fright from behind him. Robert turned.  
  
As he did so, Shepard shouted, "Put it down!"  
  
Lucy was behind Robert by the time he turned and stepped back into the Chamber.  
  
Shepard was still propped up against the console she'd used for cover. Her shotgun was leveled toward the other end of the chamber.  
  
Fassbinder was standing there, near one of the control consoles. Near him Rabe was on the ground, as if ready to stand. Fassbinder had his gun out and up.  
  
It was pointed at Caterina.  
  
She had stood from cover at Fassbinder's command. Her face was pale and her eyes wide with terror.  
  
"Put the gun down, Fassbinder," Robert ordered. "Now. You're not walking out of this."  
  
"I do not need to," he answered. "I only have to hold this place until the reinforcement fleet arrives. Its prizes belong to the Reich. I will not be denied! If anyone moves, if I get even the slightest feeling of your powers working on me, I will shoot. And this little _untermensch_ brat will _die_."  
  
  
  
  
The bridge of the _Eichmann_ was shuddering slightly. The officers of the massive dreadnought were watching as the enemy ships pounded them again and again with fire. The attack vessels of the enemy fleet were coming in close and strafing their weapon emplacements. The larger enemy ships - those two unknown carriers and the Alliance starship - continued to pour their phaser fire and cannon fire into the deflectors of the dreadnought. Deflectors that were holding… for the moment.  
  
 _Obersturmbannführer_ Heiss, the ship's Executive Officer, was manning a station to provide reports to _Oberführer_ Eicke. "The enemy ships continue to attack us, sir, let us retaliate!", he urged. "We could annihilate them!"  
  
"The _Aurora_ might get away," Eicke retorted. "I cannot allow that!"  
  
"Your duty is to complete the mission…"  
  
" _Do not lecture me on duty!_ ," Eicke raved. "Those swine cost me years of work, of glorious effort to finish the work of the Great Hitler and his first followers! They left my ship humiliated and broken by the _Juden_ , who ran away laughing at me! At the Reich! _Nein!_ The honor of the Reich, the _Schutzstaffel_ , and the _Führer_ demands their blood!"  
  
"I cannot maintain a targeting lock on the _Aurora_ ," reported the _Hauptsturmführer_ at Gunnery. "They are using the curvature of the planet to keep our main disruptors off of them."  
  
"Helm, full acceleration! We cannot let them succeed!"  
  
"We are at full now, _Herr Oberführer_ ," the helmsman protested.  
  
"Then divert more power to the drives! More!" Eicke slammed a fist on his chair arm. "Divert _everything!_ "  
  
  
  
  
Rabe had stayed down during the fighting. It had seemed the best thing, especially with the strange abilities Captain Dale was suddenly revealing. He had stared in wonder at the Alliance Captain moving his arms and sending stormtroopers flying without laying a hand on them. There had been rumors that the Alliance's people had bizarre powers, rumors that the State had been trying to suppress. Now he was seeing them first hand.  
  
It wasn't hard to see that there were mere moments before they did something. Before Captain Dale or that Lieutenant in the blue robe and purple body armor used their powers. But could they do so before Fassbinder killed Caterina Delgado?  
  
Rabe looked at the young woman again. He understood her terror at the gun pointed at her. She wasn't a soldier. She didn't know how to face this sort of thing.  
  
When it came down to it, neither did Rabe.  
  
All through his life, Rabe had believed one thing; that intelligence was the means to improve things. That the State and the People would be happier with the fruits of that intelligence. More than anything else, it was such things that continued the progression of his people. He had not been raised to consider every Human one of his own, that was true… but then again, in his education and later, he had known that there were those of the conquered countries who, despite their secondary status and education limitations, were still brilliant. He'd heard the stories of these people coming up with solutions that advanced the Reich, that made technology better, lives safer. These were people he looked up to, the people he wanted to be. Service through intelligence and problem-solving, not martial power.  
  
It was, admittedly, not a popular viewpoint in many circles in the Reich, but it did have its followers.  
  
Caterina Delgado was one such person he respected in that role. Her subspace scanning proposal had been a thing of sheer brilliance. From the first time he'd seen her, he knew Caterina was a boon to everything. She deserved to survive so her brilliant mind could continue to work for the betterment of all.  
  
And now this SS man, this engineered _brute_ , was going to snuff her life out. He already planned to. He'd never let her live. And then…  
  
...then they would all die, wouldn't they? Even he likely would in the fight to come. That, or be a prisoner of the enemy, and that was if he was lucky.  
  
But Caterina would still be dead.  
  
Kurt Rabe had not made many decisions on his own in his life. As a young man, he had obeyed his stern veteran father and demanding mother. When they died, it had been his maternal grandfather, a Party functionary on New Pommerania, who had brought him out to space and finished raising him in brutal and angry fashion. Even escaping that had not been his decision: the Reich had made those decisions. The State had tested him, determined his intelligence, picked the school he was to go to, the education he would receive, and put him in the _Raumkriegsmarine_ as a sensor and space specialist. Not one of these decisions had been his.  
  
Not. One.  
  
But here and now, he would make one. He would not allow the world to be further darkened by the SS. Damn his parents, his grandfather, the Reich… he would make this one choice for what _he_ believed in.  
  
He believed that Caterina Delgado should not die.  
  
Rabe launched himself at Fassbinder's arm. The SS man shouted in surprise and fired his gun.  
  
The emerald bolt from the disruptor went right by Caterina's head and scorched the far display glass.  
  
" _What are you doing?!_ ", Fassbinder shouted at him.  
  
Rabe didn't answer. He couldn't think of a way to explain his choice to Fassbinder. The SS man would never understand it if he could. He thought solely in terms of the Ideology, of the Party and Race. He couldn't process Rabe's thoughts in any way save to consider him a degenerate traitor. Nothing like that was something Rabe was interested in.  
  
The initial shock of his attack was the only reason Rabe had thrown his aim off. Now that they were grappling in close quarters, Rabe was no match for Fassbinder's engineered strength and power. The SS man swiftly pulled his gun free and belted Rabe across the mouth. Rabe felt two teeth break loose from the impact and fell backward.  
  
Fassbinder screamed "Traitor!" while directing his gun toward Caterina again.  
  
He never got the chance to pull the trigger. Robert reached out with his power and ripped the gun from Fassbinder's hand. Shepard's shotgun rang out. Blood exploded from Fassbinder's shoulder. The powerful slug ripped through the meat and bone of Fassbinder's body and out the other end, where it promptly broke a hole through the transparent material of the window.   
  
The impact of the shot threw Fassbinder backward and through the new hole. He screamed in rage as he fell out into the dock.  
  
Robert forced himself to stop feeling for Fassbinder. He didn't want to experience the result of the SS man splatting several stories down.  
  
"Damn," Shepard mumbled. "I was aiming for his heart." The smile she had was weak. She was still favoring the disruptor burn on her side.  
  
Robert went up to Caterina. She was still pale and upset. Her breathing was shallow. "Cat? Cat, it's okay."  
  
"He… he was going to kill me," she whimpered.  
  
"I know. It's okay." He patted her on the shoulder. "You're okay."  
  
Caterina seemed to be starting to process things again. She turned to face Rabe, who was spitting blood onto the blue floor. "You saved me," she said.  
  
Rabe looked up at her. Blood had pooled around his lips and was flowing down onto his chin. He spoke and their auto-translators converted it into English. "I could not let him kill you," he said. "Nobody as intelligent and creative as you should die like that. Especially not to a brute like an SS man."  
  
The first one to get to Rabe's side was Worf. "You showed courage," the Klingon rumbled. Rabe looked at him as if Worf were about to rip his head off.  
  
"I am a traitor," Rabe said. He looked to where Fassbinder fell through the window. The extent of what he had just done struck him. "I… I have struck an SS man. Opposed him."  
  
"He's dead. We're the only witnesses," Lucy pointed out. Like Robert she could feel the fear bubbling from within him.  
  
"It won't matter," Rabe insisted. "If I am the only survivor, the SS will assume I am a traitor. They'll… the penalty for treason is to be ejected into space, Captain Dale. It would be more merciful if you were to shoot me now."  
  
"I've got one better on you," Robert said. "Leave the Reich. You can come with us."  
  
"Come with you?" Rabe considered that. "I…" He shook his head. "I would have to face my friends and comrades in battle, then. I have no deep love for the Reich, but the men I've served with, I can't betray them. I can't help to kill them, Captain Dale."  
  
"I'm not saying your only option is to join the Alliance service, _Leutnant_ ," Robert said. "There are other options. All I ask is that you come with us and explore them. It's better than dying here. Not when you might have so much to offer."  
  
Caterina nodded. "Yeah. There are… I mean, you're smart. You can join a science mission, or become a science officer somewhere outside of the Alliance. You don't have to stay with us." She smiled at him. "You shouldn't have to die because you saved my life."  
  
Rabe seemed to consider this.  
  
As he did, Kane clicked his tongue. "Uh, I don't want to break up the kumbaya fest here, but I'll remind everyone we're supposed to blow this place up. How do we do that?"  
  
"What happened to the naqia charges?", Cat asked. "They should have worked."  
  
"They didn't induce enough destabilization in the naqia," Lucy explained. "We used one of the charges on our attackers, and it did a lot of damage… but not nearly enough."  
  
"We must have messed something up…"  
  
"We'll find out when we can. Right now, though, we need to think of what to do." Robert hit the key on his multidevice. "Dale to _Aurora_ , what's your status?"  
  
There was no immediate answer.  
  
"Dale to _Aurora_ , what's your…"  
  
Before his voice could show any real panic, Robert was rewarded with Julia's reply. " _We're a little busy here…_ "  
  
  
  
  
The _Aurora_ took a hit that sent a shower of sparks off of the now-flickering MCD behind Julia. "Shields are down again." Jarod was working on his board. "The damage control teams can't keep the generators up long enough to regenerate shields to withstand those super-disruptors. We've got more hull breaches and armor damage on Decks 12 through 15, Section G and H."  
  
Julia checked her usual station. Casualty reports were continuing to come in all over the ship. Leo was getting them treated as quickly as he could, and given how much the ship was shaking it was making it hard on him. "More power to engines," she said. "We have to get around the planet again."  
  
"We're at max now," Jarod warned. "And we're about to come up on the _Reich's Glory_ and _Sladen_. If the _Glory_ opens up on us in this condition…"  
  
"So…" Julia nodded. "Alright. Break us completely from orbit, Mister Locarno." She hailed Engineering with the chair control. "Mister Scott, please tell me you can get us more speed, that dreadnought really wants us dead."  
  
" _I cannae give ye any more on th' impulse engines, lass. I've given ye all I can. There's simply tae much damage._ "  
  
"I'd like to know how they're keeping up with us," Angel growled. "Those things can't be that fast."  
  
Ensign al-Rashad spoke up. "Going by their power output, I think they're putting all power into their engines."  
  
That made Jarod look up. "Probably too much to keep up with us, even at our current capacity." He looked over the readings himself. "It looks like their shield systems are degrading. If enough fire is focused on one point…"  
  
  
  
  
Even as Jarod was saying that, Zack was watching his pulse phaser cannons continue to pummel the dreadnought's shields. A few of the smaller disruptor cannons on the ship occasionally fired at them, inflicting shield loss, but so far his ship was mostly unhurt. "That commander wants the _Aurora_ dead pretty badly," he said. He opened his tactical comm line. "Commander Sisko, what do you make of this? Any way we can use this to our favor?"  
  
" _Chief O'Brien believes they're degrading their shields to sustain this high impulse level_ ," Sisko replied. " _I'm inclined to agree._ "  
  
"Yeah." Barnes spoke up from their engineering station. "And if they're doing that, maybe enough firepower into one arc might overload their shields enough to ruin cohesion."  
  
Madeleine Laurent's voice now joined them. " _Lieutenant Duwala's scans confirm that their shields are most vulnerable to their stern. It may be due to the impulse drives being pushed as they are._ "  
  
" _Admiral Adama here. It sounds like we have a target._ " Zack nodded at Adama's remark. " _All ships and fighters, concentrate firepower on the enemy ship's rear drives._ "  
  
"You heard the Admiral, Ap," Zack said. "Give it everything we've got."  
  
"Aye sir."  
  
The _Koenig_ broke off her strafing run and moved away from the enemy ship. Only briefly, long enough that the _Defiant_ , _Park_ , and the _Eagle_ met up with them. The four attack ships raced along the back of the enemy dreadnought with energy cannons blazing and torpedoes firing.  
  
Behind them, surviving Mongoose fighters from the _Aurora_ and _Challenger_ roared in at full impulse. Whatever remaining munitions they had were expended and they fired their phasers to the point of overheating. The _Challenger_ endured fire from some of the dorsal disruptors of the dreadnought. One super-disruptor emplacement fired a beam that penetrated the shields and scarred the ship's port side. It did not manage a hull breach or anything further damaging. The hull repair systems immediately began applying replicated patches to the damage.  
  
As soon as Laurent's ship was in position her gunnery officer opened up with everything he had. Sapphire energy bolts and the amber color of the phasers streaked into the dreadnought's rear shields.  
  
Several more amber beams began pounding those shields. Adama's ships lacked the sublight acceleration to keep up, but they still had the range and were firing for everything they were worth. Ahead of them the Raptors and Vipers of the two ships came soaring in. The handful of remaining SS fighters exploded under the volume of fire from _Pegasus_ ' Vipers, leaving the rest of the ship's complement to join _Galactica_ 's in their attack run. Rounds from the Vipers were little more than hailstones against the shields, but every little bit counted. The Vipers danced with little effort against the enemy's return fire. Since they were remaining behind the _Eichmann_ , it's handful of aft-facing weapons were being overwhelmed by the sheer number of targets.  
  
What counted more than the Vipers, or even the Mongooses, were the munitions the Raptors carried in. Most of them were carrying conventional Colonial atomics. A handful had the remaining special warheads with naqia. They reached their firing range and opened up in one synchronized salvo. The missiles soared in alongside solar torpedoes from the other Alliance ships and the _Defiant_ 's own quantum torpedoes. Phaser fire and the pulse plasma cannons on the _Challenger_ chipped away at the shields further in the moments before the Raptors' strike began hitting home. Each wave of missiles came in, fully synchronized for maximum effect, and vent their tremendous energies against the dreadnought's shields.  
  
Said shields were still flaring red. But the red began to sputter under the onslaught. "Come on," Zack grumbled. "Come on you bastard…"  
  
The enemy dreadnought began to turn. Evidently they had realized their situation and were adjusting.  
  
But it was too late.  
  
More and more hits weren't hitting the red. They were hitting hull. The _Defiant_ 's phasers slammed into one of the impulse drives of the dreadnought. _Challenger_ 's bow cannons battered the port warp nacelle of the dreadnought until it exploded. _Park_ and _Eagle_ raced in and put torpedoes and phaser shots into the stern heavy disruptor and blew it apart. The _Koenig_ , with Sherlily's expert aim, pumped its firepower into the enemy's port impulse drive. From further away the _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ continued to batter the _Eichmann_ 's aft section. _Galactica_ scored a direct hit on the starboard nacelle of the ship. Its blood-red color began to flicker and go out.  
  
The enemy ship was still turning. Its overloaded shields were having trouble enduring damage even on the other arcs now, but shots were again playing against red energy and not bare hull.  
  
  
  
  
Electrical fires were raging on the bridge of the _Eichmann_. Eicke was shouting orders and getting only reports.  
  
"Warp drive is down! Sublight drives are at sixty percent effectiveness!"  
  
"The shield grid has been compromised. Aft shields no longer functioning. All other shield arcs are losing cohesion from damage to the system."  
  
"Weapons power is down…"  
  
Heiss glared at his commander. "We are losing this battle, _Herr Oberführer_! What are your orders?" When Eicke didn't reply, Heiss shouted again. " _ **What are your orders?!**_ "  
  
 _I have been a fool_ , Eicke realized. His fury and rage, usually so helpful to him, had betrayed him instead. He had dismissed the threat of the enemy ships as being too weak to effectively harm the _Eichmann_. That had cost him his ship.  
  
His ship. His honor. His revenge. His mission. All of it lost. All that he could do now was fight the enemy to the death.  
  
But even that felt beyond him. This had been the Reich's chance to win the war. To ensure they could lash out at their foes and impose their will on the Multiverse. But failure here would rob them of that. The reinforcement fleet was still too far away. The enemy would destroy the alien facility and rob them of their chance to level the field.  
  
 _I have failed you,_ mein Führer _. I do not deserve to live._  
  
Eicke reached for his belt and pulled out his pistol.  
  
" _Oberführer_ , what are you…?"  
  
Eicke pulled the trigger.  
  
  
  
  
Julia watched the firing of the _Eichmann_ change. It started to fire at their allies and lessened the shots at them. The range started to open up.  
  
They hadn't had the chance to recommend Jarod's strategy before the allies did it themselves. Of course, given the concentration of talent on those ships, Julia wasn't shocked by it.  
  
And even more importantly, it had bought them the time they needed. "The tertiary shield generators and our remaining secondaries are restoring shield cohesion."  
  
"How well off are we, Commander?"  
  
"I can give you at least thirty-three percent effectiveness on all faces. Double that if we focus our shields, although we might get generators going offline once we take fire."  
  
"I see." She considered that. "We'll need at least fifty percent usual strength to take a super-disruptor hit. Commander, put all shields to bow."  
  
"Right."  
  
"Lieutenant Locarno, bring us back about. Lieutenant Delgado, get a target lock and fire when you can." Julia felt her voice fill with confidence. "It's time we finished this."  
  
The _Aurora_ swung back around and moved in toward the _Eichmann_. The stricken dreadnought was losing speed and acceleration with the growing damage to its impulse drives. Its firing was becoming desperate, with attempts to deal with the four attack ships moving up and down its hull and hitting every weapon emplacement they could while _Challenger_ , already wounded, remained to the aft of the dreadnought and continued to fire into her dying engines. It was like a great beast was being stabbed and clubbed by a host of lesser creatures. Individually it could swat them all, but with its wounds slowing it down and the enemy too fast to hit, it was losing.  
  
Angel vented the fury of the _Aurora_ on the SS dreadnought. Pulse plasma cannon fire, pulse phaser cannon fire, phaser strips, and solar torpedoes all lashed out at the giant that had wounded the _Aurora_ so grievously.  
  
The enemy ship's shields resisted initially. But they were already so badly degraded by the damage to their power systems and shield generators that even the powerful banks that protected the behemoth began to buckle under the attack. Julia watched on the magnified viewer to see Angel's handiwork send flame and debris from the enemy ship's bow. Their own forward cannons hammered the big ship's bow super-disruptors until they came apart. Explosion after explosion rippled over the dreadnought.  
  
And to top it off, a spread of solar torpedoes slammed into the great large swastika emblazoned on its hull. The insignia of the Nazi Reich disintegrated in flame and wreckage.  
  
The symbolism made Julia grin. And, she supposed, it was a very feral grin, the kind she used to give in far more modest circumstances in high school gyms across Kansas.  
  
And then something happened on the other ship. It might have been a hit to their armory or magazines. It could have been their scuttling charges going off.  
  
"There she goes," Locarno said, with some cheer in his voice, as the SS dreadnought _Eichmann_ was blown apart in a massive series of explosions.  
  
Applause immediately broke out on the bridge of the _Aurora_. "Not yet," Julia demanded, and the applause ended. "Mister Locarno, bring us back into course for our original position. There's still one enemy ship left, and the _Sladen_ probably needs our help."  
  
  
  
  
If Commander King had heard Julia's remark, she would have appreciated it for the understatement that it was.  
  
The _Sladen_ 's bridge had a thin haze of smoke from an electrical fire long put out. One of her bridge crew, a technical officer manning an auxiliary station, was already on the way to the ship's medbay with injuries. On her viewscreen the mostly-intact Reich heavy cruiser lashed out at them with another barrage from their disruptor cannons. The _Sladen_ rocked underneath them.  
  
"Shields are down to fifteen percent," Ensign Skarsgard warned. "Our armor has been breached on all decks."  
  
"I'm having trouble keeping weapons power up," added Lieutenant Trymi. "And we're down to just five solar torpedoes."  
  
King nodded. She would have broken off the engagement long ago, but she knew that would allow the enemy cruiser to beam down more reinforcements to the Facility. The mission required they remain engaged. And with the cloaking device off-line, hit-and-run attacks were no longer possible.  
  
More of their phaser fire stitched over the enemy cruiser. The _Sedan_ -class ship had some scorch marks and hull damage from where their shots had managed to overcome the steadily-declining shields of the enemy ship. But for all the firepower of the _Sladen_ , they couldn't get them down completely. They were losing this battle.  
  
 _But it doesn't matter. The mission must come first. If duty demands I die, so be it._  
  
"Commander, I'm reading several explosions around the horizon of the planet," Skarsgard informed her. "I think it was the enemy dreadnought!"  
  
"Was it? Are you sure it wasn't the _Aurora_?"  
  
Skarsgard checked her board carefully. With their sensors damaged she had to be sure. Within seconds the young Norwegian nodded enthusiastically. "It wasn't! I've got the _Aurora_ on sensors still! She's coming our way with the other ships that jumped in."  
  
"Good for them," King sighed. _Perhaps I shall live after all…_  
  
  
  
  
On the bridge of the _Reich's Glory_ Lamper was listening to _Leutnant_ Klein, Rabe's replacement, confirm the report. He drew in a breath.  
  
The _Eichmann_ destroyed. The SS flotilla completely wiped out.  
  
For a moment Lamper gave himself the luxury of fear. Fear that the SS would blame him, regardless of what Eicke had ordered. It wouldn't be beyond them to embrace hypocrisy and damn him for obeying an order from an SS commander. They might yet accuse him of all sorts of ghastly things.  
  
" _Herr Käpitan_?" Falk was speaking to him. "What shall we do? The enemy is rounding the planet. There are several enemy ships. Even if we could finish the _Aurora_ off…"  
  
"...her comrades would be the death of us." Lamper sucked in a breath. "Do we have anything from the planet's surface?"  
  
"We have no answers from the Facility. There are only the remaining personnel in the SS camp."  
  
Klein added, "I have only a few life signs showing."  
  
He nodded. SS men, yes… but they were still Germans. Lamper had a duty to uphold. "Lower shields on the opposite quarter from the enemy vessel and beam them up. Helm, set us a course away from here, maximum warp velocity."  
  
" _Jawohl_ ," came the two replies.  
  
Lamper waited patiently as the maneuver was carried out. With the damage it had taken the other ship couldn't quite position itself in time to stop their maneuver and take advantage of the shields going down. Of course, they were just beaming people up quickly. They might have had a longer window if they were beaming down another assault team.  
  
"They are recovered, _Herr Käpitan_ ," Falk stated.  
  
"Get us out of here, _Oberleutnant_ ," Lamper ordered.  
  
  
  
  
Julia watched the _Reich's Glory_ jump to warp.  
  
This time, she didn't stop the others from celebrating. She almost joined them.  
  
Instead of cheering or laughing, she simply breathed in relief. They'd survived. The _Aurora_ had taken a beating, the worst one they'd known, but they were still alive.  
  
They had _won_.  
  
"Jarod, please put me on with the others."  
  
Jarod nodded and keyed the tactical commlink to visual. He looked up and saw the viewer fill with screens. Adama looked at her from his place on the _Galactica_ CIC. His jaw was set and he looked like he had just been overseeing maneuvers, not his civilization's first extrauniversal space battle. Zack had something of a cocky stature in how he was leaning in his chair that felt new to him, and which Julia thought was a good sign. Sisko had his hands on his chair arms and looked relaxed and comfortable in the aftermath of their victory. Madeleine was sitting back in her command chair looking quite pleased with herself. Yonatan Shaham had the wide smile of a youth who had just accomplished a life's dream. Ibrahim had his usual solemn look that made him look natural in the pressures of command. And last, but definitely not least, Commander King was keeping that stiff, formal posture that the Englishwoman seemed to cultivate as part of her command style. Stiff upper lip and all, even with the haze of electrical fire smoke still wafting about her bridge. "Thank you all," Julia said to them. "I owe you all a favor."  
  
" _Who's counting?_ ", Zack said. " _I'm just glad we got here in time._ "  
  
"How did President Roslin take it?", Julia asked. "Taking all of the remaining Colonial military with you?"  
  
" _The President agreed that with the stakes of this mission, risks were necessary_ ," Adama answered. " _It doesn't hurt that we're one jump away from Dorei space._ "  
  
"Congratulations," Julia said. "I'm looking forward to hearing about the new world you settle."  
  
" _Where is Captain Dale?_ ", asked Ibrahim. " _Has he been hurt?_ "  
  
"I don't think so. One moment." Julia nodded to Jarod. He promptly tied their tactical link in to the commlink with the ground party. " _Aurora_ to Dale. You were saying something?"  
  
" _How is everything up there?_ "  
  
"The _Eichmann_ has been destroyed," Julia said. "And the _Reich's Glory_ retreated. Admiral Adama is here."  
  
" _Admiral Adama?_ "  
  
" _Hello Captain_."  
  
Robert was quiet for a moment. " _Thanks for your help, sir. What do you think of detaching a pursuit for the_ Glory _?_ "  
  
" _The_ Challenger _could do it, I suppose. But from what I gather, it might not be able to fight off a Reich heavy cruiser. And your ship is far too damaged to make the attack._ "  
  
"Our warp drive is out and we have one nacelle completely ruined," Julia clarified.  
  
" _Damn. Well, that's where jump drives are good. Do we know how long until that enemy fleet gets here?_ "  
  
"Given what Admiral Maran said, not for several more hours."  
  
" _Good, that gives us time. Re-establish the communications link with the Facility. We'll load as much data as we can before we go. To every ship that's here._ "  
  
Which, of course, was not exactly in their orders. But Julia thought it was right. Sisko could use Darglan data to help justify his "accidental" entry into the war and for the Colonials it was a significant compensation for the pilots they had undoubtedly lost. "Jarod is setting it up now."  
  
" _Lieutenant Dax is ready to establish the link_ ," Sisko confirmed.  
  
" _We're ready to receive_ ," Adama added.  
  
The other captains confirmed their readiness.  
  
  
  
  
Robert overheard them. "Good. Standby, _Aurora_ , we're sending wounded up as soon as we get our transporter enhancers back online."  
  
" _We're ready. But what we are going to do about the Facility? Are the charges ready?_ "  
  
"We had a problem with them. We'll think of something. Keep in touch and let me know if anything else happens. Dale out."  
  
He looked to the others. Marines had removed Shepard and Meridina to be treated by their surviving medic. Lucy had gone to help the engineers that survived the fighting get their transport enhancers back online. Rabe was still here, under discreet guard by Kane, while Worf and Cat were looking over Data. "I think that we can repair him if we get him back to the _Aurora_ ," she said. "We might need to have Commander La Forge's help."  
  
"As long as we get him up there. We have other things to consider, Cat." Robert looked back out at the dock and sighed. "We need to figure out how to blow this place up if your naqia explosives aren't working. Or all of this…" He gestured toward the various dead troopers. "...will have been for nothing."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future is at stake for the crew of the ASV Aurora in their fight to keep the ancient Darglan Facility out of Reich hands.

Robert greeted the newcomers as they arrived in the Control chamber. Admiral Adama had come down. So had Commander Sisko. Yonatan Shaham and Madeleine Laurent arrived right before Zack did.  
  
Zack went up to Robert with open arms. Robert was quick to accept the hug from his friend. "It's good to see you," he said.  
  
"Good to see you." Zack gave him a careful look. "Are you okay? There's something different now…"  
  
"You could say that."  
  
Nearby Jarod and Cat were going over the controls to the Facility. Julia was standing beside him and looking up at Control. "So you don't remember?"  
  
"I am afraid I do not," he answered her.  
  
"I'm sorry for you."  
  
"It is quite alright." Control nodded. "I remember enough to know you and the others have done the Darglan proud. This new alliance you have formed is everything they wished to see come about."  
  
"I'm more concerned with what attacked this place," Jarod said. "Because whoever did it actually managed to force a lock into the jump gates in the docks." He motioned to the debris outside, within the zero-G drydock field at the middle of the dock area. "It's no wonder the Darglan decided to wipe out everything in here."  
  
Sisko looked over one of the interfaces. With power partially restored it responded to his touch, altering from Darglan text to English. "Interesting technology. Some sort of neural interface?"  
  
"Yes, Commander Sisko," Control answered.  
  
"So one of these is where it all began." Adama continued to look around. "This entire Multiversal Era of yours."  
  
"Pretty much," Cat remarked.  
  
"The old one was brighter," Madeleine stated. "And more hospitable. This place feels like a graveyard."  
  
Robert knew what she meant. Even more now. The energy inside him felt a cold sensation in the air. Fear and terror, pain, rage, and sheer destructive hate. Some of it was fresh, an imprint left by the hateful fanatics of the SS. But some was far, far older. And some of it was… different. Some remnant to a wrongness, like finding old bloodstains in a serial killer's dungeon.  
  
What had the Darglan fought here?  
  
"As much as I would have liked a tour, the enemy fleet is just a few hours out," Adama pointed out. "We need a solution on how to blow this place up."  
  
"It is easier said than done, Admiral." Control faced the older man. "The Darglan instituted defenses against such direct sabotage. The sort of blast that would be capable of destroying this facility requires excessive amounts of energy. More than your explosives can easily match."  
  
"What if we combined a quantum torpedo with a naqia booster?", Jarod asked. "That's a nasty combination."  
  
"It would yet be insufficient to overcome the Darglan defenses. To be honest, even your plan of using destabilized naqia charges may have proven insufficient, Captain Dale."  
  
Robert nodded. "And Cat's still running the calculations on how that didn't work."  
  
"Surely the Darglan provided this place with a self-destruct mechanism," Sisko said.  
  
"They did. But the necessary protocols to initiate it were degraded by the damage to the computer cores. I would need a high access to initiate the command."  
  
"Well, maybe…" Zack looked at Robert and then Sisko. "Between Dax and O'Brien and Jarod and Cat and all of Maddie's people… maybe we could manage to hack it…"  
  
"Cracking a Darglan computer in a few hours?" Jarod shook his head. "Even if we got Data back on his feet, I'm not sure we could pull that off in time."  
  
"But maybe…"  
  
As they talked Robert felt something tug at him. He closed his eyes and thought of the day, exhausting as it was. He was missing something. Something…  
  
 _Of course._  
  
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the orange disc that the Consort had given him. He walked up toward the holotank while everyone started to look his way.  
  
Control looked at him. "Where did you get that?", he inquired.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"It is a Darglan command disc," Control replied. "Their highest authorities used them to be given instant computer authority whenever they went in Darglan territories."  
  
"What?" Caterina blinked. "I scanned that. I couldn't make out the material, but I didn't find any evidence of data storage."  
  
"The data is not detectable by those means," Control explained. "This device is based off of recovered Time Lord technology. The disc can access a pocket dimension where the physical media for the data is kept. If you do not have the appropriate means to access the dimension and read the data, it will not work."  
  
"Do we here?", Cat asked. She was looking at the disc with excitement. Who knew what secrets the Darglan hid on the thing?  
  
"I am afraid not. It is likely the reading device was evacuated along with the Emergency Combat Ship."  
  
"So it's useless?" Robert's voice betrayed his disbelief.  
  
"Not at all. Merely by possessing it, the Facility systems grant you the highest levels of authority. The damage to the computer cores no longer limit my access. I can now initiate the Facility self-destruct with your access permissions."  
  
"Just that simple, huh?" Zack shook his head. "Wow, Rob, that was good luck getting that thing."  
  
"A part of me is wondering if it was luck at all," Robert admitted, looking at the disc. He wondered what secrets were still contained within.  
  
"It would seem our problems here are solved then," Sisko said. "We should get going. The Reich's cloaked attack ships could be moving ahead of their fleet."  
  
"Entirely possible," Robert agreed. He took in a breath. "Cat, Jarod, get everything back up to the _Aurora_. As soon as you're all gone, I'll trigger the self-destruct and leave the Facility."  
  
Cat was looking at Control with sad eyes. "So… what happens to you?", she asked.  
  
"I am still primarily aboard your ship and stored in your computer core," Control revealed. "I will simply upload what data I must to maintain the cohesion of my program and go into another cycle of reduced capacity."  
  
"That's horrible, though," Cat insisted. "What if we expand our computer memory? You could run again, you could become our central computer!"  
  
"I'm afraid your ship would need a major reconstruction to implement the computer cores necessary to contain my full program. And it would force you to reduce your capabilities in other areas." Control smiled gently at her. "Do not worry, Caterina Delgado. I will remain in your ship and continue to help where I can. And though I will lack the means to directly communicate with you as I do here, I will be with you."  
  
It was clear to Robert that Caterina didn't consider that enough. But she forced a smile and nodded while tears flowed down her face. At least he was alive. He had survived her mistake.  
  
  
  
  
Once everyone was out, Robert stood alone in the Control room. He looked at the disc. Studied it. Where could it have come from? How did the Consort get it? How did she know to give it to him?  
  
All of these questions needed answers. And he knew it would be a long time before he got them.  
  
He nevertheless found himself focusing on the disc. He had a feeling there was something else he could do with it, here and now.  
  
 _Hell. I might as well ask._ He looked up at Control. The program was preparing the final stages of returning himself to the _Aurora_. "Control, is there anything else I can do with this here? Anything of interest? New technical schematics? Files, information, that I can access?"  
  
"Standby." Control went still for a moment. "There is one message that was stored in high priority. It is no longer intact due to the computer damage. I can replay one line for you."  
  
"Go ahead," he said.  
  
Control went stiff again. And when he spoke, it was with an odd tone.  
  
" **'...stop the Darkness.'** "  
  
After that line repeated a few times, Robert held up a hand. "What is it talking about? What darkness?"  
  
"I do not know."  
  
For a moment Robert thought about that line. And then a memory kicked in.  
  
A galaxy. Stars going out, one after the other, in waves until no light was left.  
  
It had been in his nightmare. After his dreams about the Reich destroying everything.  
  
How were these things connected? What did it all have to do with what happened here?  
  
"Aurora _to Dale_." Julia's voice brought him out of his thoughts. " _We just picked up enemy ships on long range sensors. We've got an hour before they're here._ "  
  
"I'll be right up," he said. He looked to the transporter enhancers. They were set up and working. With that done he looked at Control. "Initiate the self-destruct sequence." He held up the disc. "By my authority."  
  
"Commencing. Shutting down dimensional transcendence field generators. Shut down will complete in thirty seconds. I am now finishing my upload to the _Aurora_." Control nodded. "Farewell, Robert."  
  
"I'll see you around," he replied. He tapped his multidevice. "Beam me up."  
  
His eyes settled on the carnage in the dock area. The destroyed ships, still hovering in remnant zero-G fields, and who knew what else was down there with Fassbinder's body.  
  
He had a feeling that this was just the beginning for this mystery.  
  
And then the _Aurora_ transporter whisked him back home.  
  
  
  
  
Robert arrived on the bridge of the _Aurora_ just as Cat was giving her report. "I just detected a subspace ripple. It matches the one that happened when the last Facility had its DT field go down."  
  
"And Lucy?", he asked.  
  
A moment later Lucy's voice came over the comm. " _There was a hell of a lot of racket for about ten seconds. And then nothing. The door won't open at all. This place is history._ "  
  
"Literally. Let's get out of here then." Robert went to his seat. Julia was back in hers.  
  
"We have her aboard."  
  
"Thank you, Jarod." Robert looked at Angel. "It's time."  
  
She nodded and triggered a solar torpedo launcher on the bow. The spark of blue-white light flew into the planet. A bright flash marked where it exploded. "Direct hit. There's nothing left of the mound."  
  
"Who's left in orbit?", Robert asked.  
  
"Just the _Challenger_ ," Julia said. "The other ships all jumped out before you beamed up. The _Sladen_ is docked. And, somehow, we managed to cram all of our surviving fighters into the shuttle bays."  
  
"Well, we're done here I suppose. Set the jump drive, we're heading to Earth, L2M1."  
  
"Setting for Rimward Station, D3R1," Jarod said. The first jump would get them close enough that the second jump would carry them straight on to Earth. "Establishing link now. Preparing jump drive…"  
  
"The _Challenger_ is jumping out now," Julia added.  
  
The two ships generated their own jump points in space. Each entered their own swirling vortex of green energy and were gone.  
  
  
  
  
Lamper stepped into the infirmary on his ship. Dr. Beimler gave him a nod and directed him to one of the few exam beds occupied. The figure laying on it was wounded, severely. And Lamper knew his disposition would only get worse. "Fassbinder," he said.  
  
Fassbinder looked up. " _Ja_?"  
  
"You survived. I would not have expected that."  
  
"Only barely," he revealed. "I had established a transporter link to our enhancers. I activated it after I fell and had the enhancers send me on to the base camp." He motioned to his shoulder. "This, Lamper, is your fault."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Your… sensor officer. He betrayed me," Fassbinder growled. "He betrayed me for an _untermensch_. I want the names of his family. Every member. They will pay for this."  
  
" _Leutnant_ Rabe has only one surviving kin, his grandfather Heinrich Peiper. He is a senior assistant to the Gauleiter of New Pommerania, I believe." Lamper showed no satisfaction to that. Peiper was a Party man, with seniority. Arguably enough that he would evade punishment for Rabe's actions. "The _Leutnant_ was a very quiet young man. I have tried on occasion to encourage him to be more energetic in his duties. But I got the feeling he resented his compulsory service."  
  
"You should have reported him," Fassbinder spat. "There can be no room for shirkers in the Reich!"  
  
"Most grow out of this phase, Fassbinder," Lamper said. "They come to understand the importance of duty through shared experience. I am only disappointed the _Leutnant_ chose this path. Although given the outcome of this mission, I suppose he is safer than us now."  
  
Lamper had expected that to wound. A little measure to remain Fassbinder of his failure, and how the SS abandonment of the fleet at New Austria had now been for nothing.  
  
But Fassbinder didn't. He smiled thinly. "Oh, _Käpitan_? You believe we failed?"  
  
"They have undoubtedly destroyed the Facility by now," Lamper pointed out. "We will not gain the technology the SS sacrificed so much for."  
  
"Hrm. It is true we did not get all we wanted."  
  
Lamper watched as Fassbinder slipped his working right hand into his field uniform. He was reaching for one of the utility pouches within. When his hand came back out, it was holding a device. Lamper didn't recognize it. "What is that?", he asked.  
  
"An innovation of the Gestapo," Fassbinder said. "A data siphon device. It remotely connects to existing data connections and transmissions to siphon the data. I left its counterpart in the Facility, hidden in the Control Chamber there. It is designed to transmit what it finds to its sister device through high subspace frequencies, beyond the usual range used for subspace radio. I am assured it is very hard to detect, quite hard indeed, unless you know what to look for. And I have had this transmitting into your computer banks since this started."  
  
Lamper considered what he was saying. "So what you are saying is…"  
  
"...we may not have secured the alien Facility, _Käpitan_ ," Fassbinder finished for him, "but only time will tell if this was the failure you think it to be."  
  
And there was nothing Lamper could say to that.  
  
  
  
  
 _Ship's Log: ASV Aurora; 17 October 2641. Captain Robert Dale recording. We have returned to the Fleet Command Spacedock to begin repairs to the ship. With all of the damage we took, it will be weeks before we're ready to go back out. This should give everyone some time to deal with the stresses of what we just went through and to process the grief for the comrades we lost at Gamma Piratus and New Austria.  
  
The Darglan data we recovered may go a long way into furthering our edge over the Reich in this war. We've beaten them at New Austria and we've held there. We're already getting reports of uprisings and anti-Reich actions across the adjoining sectors. This may very well be our first step in winning the war and putting down the Reich completely.  
  
On a personal note… I now have to deal with the fact that I have become what Meridina and Lucy are. There's no hiding that. It's simply something I'll have to accept. Which won't be easy given what Commander King has told us._  
  
  
Robert was finishing his log when the tone at his door sounded. He looked up and was pleasantly surprised to see Picard enter. "Captain. I wasn't aware you had come aboard."  
  
"I thought I would surprise you." Picard gave him a wistful look. "I understand you had to destroy the Darglan Facility after all. A shame."  
  
"Yes. Although… this place wasn't as n nice as our old one, Jean-Luc. The Darglan there had been fighting something. Something so nasty they killed themselves to keep their Facility out of the enemy's hands."  
  
"That does sound rather bad, yes."  
  
Robert answered with a nod. "So, how's Data?"  
  
"Mister Data will be up on his feet soon," Picard assured him. "Mister La Forge and Mister Jarod are already finishing the critical repairs. We'll finish those repairs when we return to the _Crazy Horse_ for the jump home."  
  
"Good. He and Worf helped us make the difference. I was honored to serve with them."  
  
"They appreciate the sentiment, I'm sure."  
  
"Will Commander Sisko get in trouble over his 'accidental' jump into the war?", Robert asked.  
  
At that Picard grinned, as if they had just shared a joke. "I suspect the Commander will be dealt with appropriately. As they say, the reward for work done well is more work. And people I know at Starfleet Command indicate that he is likely to be made a Captain soon enough."  
  
"He deserves it."  
  
Before either could continue on the door chime sounded again. Robert looked up in time to see Commander King enter. She was holding a data pad with her. "Ah, Captain Dale, my apologies for interrupting you and Captain Picard," she said.  
  
"It's quite alright, I must be going anyway," Picard assured.  
  
Robert had a sudden thought. "Captain, before you go… there is someone I'd like you to talk to. Commander Worf can direct you to the quarters we've assigned him."  
  
"Oh?" Picard considered that with interest. "Well, I will speak with him then." Picard smiled the usual sort of warm, friendly smile he was capable of. " _Bon voyage_ , Captain."  
  
Robert returned that smile with his own. "Happy trails, Captain."  
  
After Picard had left King handed him the datapad. "My official transfer orders, Captain," she said. "The _Sladen_ will need its own time in drydock before we're fit for service again. And Command is re-assigning us to the 10th Attack Flotilla when it forms in a month's time."  
  
"Ah. Well, good luck," Robert said. King noticed that the smile Picard had merited had completely vanished. He went over the transfer order and used a thumbscan to confirm he'd seen it. "Good luck when you go back to the war. You're dismissed."  
  
"Thank you, sir." King turned to leave. She stopped before she got to the door and looked back to him. "Despite everything, Captain, it was an honor to serve with you. Hopefully one day we might work together again under less… onerous circumstances."  
  
"Maybe," he answered, although in his mind the answer was a firm "No way".  
  
King noted that. And she understood it. "I understand, sir. Good voyages to you."  
  
She left and Robert was alone with his thoughts.  
  
And, unfortunately, the energy within him that didn't seem to go away. He found himself wondering how Lucy and Meridina didn't become surly from putting up with it. It was, unfortunately, very distracting.  
  
  
  
  
Leo finished examining the patch of skin with his scanner. "Looks like the cellular regeneration is holding. The damage is certainly healing well." He leaned back and looked over Commander Shepard, who was pulling her shirt back down. "That armor took most of the shot."  
  
"That's a relief." Shepard looked around. "Not a lot of casualties?"  
  
"No. We just sent them on to dedicated facilities,' Leo admitted. "We took hundreds of people in during the battle. It felt like we had half the crew in here, screaming and dying." His eyes focused on something not there. A memory, an image of how chaotic and terrible things had been. "That's the trouble with going into combat. People die whether you win or lose."  
  
"That's how it's always been." Shepard moved on the bed. "So, do I get a bill of health?"  
  
"I'd like to keep you longer for observation." Seeing the displeased look on her face, he continued, "...but I don't see any cause for concern. Just take it easy for a few days."  
  
"I've got weeks of debriefings and committee meetings ahead of me. Taking it easy is all in the eye of the beholder."  
  
"It's got to be better than combat," Leo pointed out.  
  
"In combat, I get to shoot the bastard who's bothering me," Shepard pointed out drolly.  
  
"I suppose that can be a boon." Leo put his scanner back into its place on his multidevice. It snapped right into its slot as designed. "Nurse Nasri will see you out."  
  
Leo went to his office. He dropped into his chair bonelessly before rubbing at his eyes. The exhaustion had set in. It was everything he could do to stay awake for the rest of this shift.  
  
Of course, sleep had its own problems. It seemed like those lines of sheet-covered bodies appeared whenever he closed his eyes.  
  
The fact that it might have been worse was only a partial consolation.  
  
  
  
  
Worf led Picard to the guest quarters on Deck 7. Two of the ship's security personnel were flanking the doors. "Captain Dale and Commander Meridina have authorized this visit," he rumbled to them.  
  
The security people, a Dorei and an Alakin, nodded. One unlocked the door.  
  
Inside Picard found a smaller set of guest quarters than those he'd found Worf in. It was a smaller accommodation than would have been available on his _Enterprise_... but of course the _Aurora_ had not been designed entirely like his own ship, and it was roughly the size of junior officer quarters he'd seen in his early Starfleet career. There were only base furnishings to go with the bed.  
  
Sitting on the bed, in a civilian suit of L2M1 style - no collar, rolled back cuffs, earthy yellow and brown coloring - was a young man. When he looked up and spoke it was with a thick German accent. "Hello."  
  
"Hello." Picard nodded. "I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Starfleet. Captain Dale and Commander Worf asked me to pay you a visit."  
  
"I am… I was… _Leutnant_ Karl Rabe, an officer of the _Raumkriegsmarine_ ," Rabe replied. "Now I… am not."  
  
Picard nodded. "Commander Worf tells me that you acted to save the life of Lieutenant Delgado."  
  
"Yes. I could not allow an SS brute to murder someone with such promise. The things her mind can come up with, to make things better…"  
  
"I see." Picard found a seat and sat down opposite from Rabe. "You showed great moral fortitude in what you did."  
  
"No." Rabe shook his head. "It… wasn't like that. I… I'm not sure what…"  
  
Picard allowed the young man to collect his thoughts.  
  
"I have never believed in the Reich's mission," Rabe admitted. "Although my parents and grandfather pushed it upon me when I was young. It never seemed reasonable to discount brilliant people simply from their race. It made no sense. But I said nothing, because to say anything would be to deny the State and Party. And now I sit here and I have thought about this, I have read your histories and seen all of the brilliant people the Reich would have demeaned or slaughtered out of hand… and I wonder how many people like Caterina Delgado died while I did nothing. When I did not even speak up for them. In truth, I was a coward."  
  
"I cannot pretend to understand, entirely, how impossible your situation had been, Mister Rabe," Picard said. "May I ask what your plans for the future are?"  
  
"I imagine I will be held as a prisoner of war. Captain Dale has promised he would report me as a defector, but… they will expect me to help them. But how can I help kill people like me? The men I served with, my comrades and friends, I can't bring myself to help kill them."  
  
"I understand," Picard said. And he knew immediately why Robert had sent him to Rabe. "Mister Rabe, perhaps you could consider a different course then."  
  
Rabe gave him a curious look.  
  
"Do you wish to make things better for others?", Picard asked. "To use your gifts and talents to improve the state of our world, so to speak?"  
  
"I do," Rabe said.  
  
"Well, as it so happens, that is our goal as well," Picard explained. "And Starfleet is not actively engaged in this conflict. I think a man of intelligence, a man willing to leave the life he had before to save just one person… is a man who would work well within Starfleet."  
  
Rabe sat silent for a moment. He looked from Picard to Worf and thought about what Picard was saying.  
  
"Please then, Captain," he answered. "Tell me more."  
  
  
  
  
Science Lab 2 was where Caterina had arranged the necessary pieces for fixing Data to be installed. La Forge and Jarod were moving around Data now and patching up the damage. "I'm just glad your positronic network wasn't shorted out," La Forge said to his friend. "That disruptor blast did a lot of damage."  
  
"Indeed."  
  
"It looks like everything's good," Jarod said. He looked up from Data's former wound. "How do you feel, Data?"  
  
"I am not receiving any indicators of further damage."  
  
"Well, that's good news."  
  
At La Forge's remark, Caterina piped in. "Yeah, but, well, how do you really feel?"  
  
Data looked at her. He considered that inquiry. "Do you mean my emotions?"  
  
"Yeah," Cat said. "Your chip didn't get damage, did it?"  
  
"It is still in operation," Data answered. He twitched his face for a moment and a small smile came to his lips. "Test complete. It is working as intended."  
  
Cat nodded and smiled as well. "That's wonderful."  
  
La Forge reached for a control and released Data from the repair cradle. He stepped off. "Thank you, Geordi. Commander Jarod. Lieutenant Delgado."  
  
"You can call me Cat, if you want," Caterina said. "I mean, we all call you Data, so…"  
  
Data seemed to process this. "Very well. Cat. Thank you for helping with the repair."  
  
Caterina's response was to give him a hug. "It's good. I was so worried when they shot you."  
  
La Forge gave Data a curious look. "It looks like you've made a new friend, Data."  
  
"Indeed. Caterina has been most interested in my development of emotions."  
  
"I think it's wonderful to have them," Cat agreed. "An AI with emotions. Control had them…"  
  
"I sense you have become sad." Data ended the hug. "Is Control not still located within your ship's tertiary auxiliary computer core?"  
  
"Yeah, but he's not himself in there. He needs a bigger computer system to be at full potential."  
  
"Yet he is here. So long as he is in the core, you have the chance to give him a proper storage medium at some point." Data's emotions shifted to allow him to comfort her with a gentle expression. "There is no reason to be sad."  
  
There was no arguing with that logic. "Yeah," Caterina agreed. "You're right."  
  
  
  
  
There was a surge of energy as the jump completed. And this time, Zack wasn't seeing it from the _Koenig_ bridge, but through the dome of _Cloud 9_. Overheard space appeared again, seemingly little different from what it had been before.  
  
But it was different. Entirely different.  
  
At Roslin's nod, he took the microphone and spoke. "Attention everyone. Yes… sorry, celebration's not over, just a moment…" When Zack saw that he'd gotten everyone's attention - his voice booming across the area and, indeed, to the rest of the Fleet, that wasn't a surprise - he continued. "Commander Zachary Carrey of the _Koenig_ speaking. To the people of the Colonial Fleet, I have just one thing to say. Congratulations! We have just jumped into the Penyami System. We are now in the territory of the Dorei Federation, a member of the United Alliance of Systems. You have officially made it to Alliance space!"  
  
The crowds cheered. Adama and his officers applauded. Even Tigh was present, with his wife Ellen at his arm.  
  
The _Koenig_ officers present applauded as well.  
  
In the crowd, the mostly-Colonial attendees continued their cheering. And one figure in a pretty dress winked at him. Zack smiled at seeing Clara blow him a kiss to go with the wink. His heart grew warm with thinking about what they were sharing now.  
  
And he felt better. His friends had needed him and he had come, and he'd brought help. His decision to go out on his own, his acceptance of the offer to join Adama's fleet with his ship… it had all worked out in the end.  
  
Everything had worked out.  
  
"Now, before we let the celebration continue, I have one more little announcement to make. Something I've been waiting weeks to say." Zack pointed out to the fields beyond the dining pavilion they were taking up. "In celebration of our arrival, the First Colonial Little League Tournament will officially begin! Alright kids, _let's play ball!_ "  
  
The cheers, this time, were at the rear, where all of the children in the tournament teams were waiting. At Zack's call they rushed out, a sea of various light and grey-colored uniforms running enthusiastically toward the ball park. Samuel Anders and Creighton Apley were waiting to send them off to their diamonds to begin the warmups for the games to come shortly.  
  
Zack left the microphone to Roslin and jumped down from the raised stage. Well-wishers extended him their hands and personal thanks and he did what he could to accept that. He made his way through the crowd to where Clara was waiting. Her blouse was a lovely sea-green and her skirt a midnight black. He felt a little flutter as her lips pressed to his for a quick kiss. "You're becoming quite the public speaker."  
  
"Not that much of one," Zack said. "President Roslin lent me her speechwriters."  
  
Clara giggled at that.  
  
"Commander."  
  
They looked to their side. Doctor Baltar stepped out from the crowd. "Commander, you did rather well," Baltar said. "I regret that you are likely to be re-assigned before my election."  
  
Zack tried not to sigh. "Well, we'll see what happens," he offered.  
  
"I was hoping to get more information from you on the planets being offered for our settlement," Baltar continued.  
  
"We made that public last week. There's nothing being hidden," Zack insisted. He kept an arm around Clara and put a polite smile on. "Honestly, Doctor Baltar, I know the election's getting a little heated. I just don't think it's my place to get involved. Admiral Adama making us members of the Fleet was an honor but it doesn't change the fact we're outsiders. Your people have to decide for yourselves without our input."  
  
Baltar smiled thinly and nodded. "I'm glad to hear you say that, Commander. Please, don't let me keep you from the games. I find your baseball rather fascinating and I hope to increase support for it when I'm in office."  
  
"That guy gives me the creeps," Clara murmured after he returned to the crowd. "I feel like he's undressing me with his eyes all of the time."  
  
"He probably is," Zack said.  
  
"And you know this because…?"  
  
"Because that's how I used to be." He gripped Clara's hand tightly. "Don't worry about it. It's just politics. Tonight is for us too."  
  
"Watching a Little League game?", she asked, a sweet smile on her face. "Not a usual date."  
  
"Not just a game. All of them! We've got every grouping playing tournaments over the next couple of days." He gave her a look. "And after today's games we'll have time for dinner and… I've reserved our suite."  
  
"Ah." Clara grinned widely. "You are such a charmer, Zachary Carrey."  
  
"I try…"  
  
They stepped out of the crowd. Before they could go further, Zack heard the call of "Commander" and turned to face Adama. The older man wasn't quite smiling, but he was still cheerful. "Congratulations. And thank you for all of the work you've done helping the Fleet. Hopefully you'll get to stay with us until this election business is finished and we confirm which world we are settling on."  
  
"I'll be with you as long as they let me, Admiral," Zack promised. "I'd like to thank you, too. You helped me convince President Roslin to take the risk and help my friends."  
  
"It's always a good policy to help friends out when they need it," Adama stated. "Your people bled to help ours. It was only right that our people did the same for yours."  
  
"Any luck with that Darglan data?"  
  
"It'll take us years to go through, honestly," he admitted. "Doctor Baltar is the best candidate to do the job. Much to my regret."  
  
"Yeah." Zack was staying apolitical and he knew Adama was trying. But despite what had happened at the initial contact, Zack would never support Baltar over Roslin. Not to himself. Roslin had at least repented of her bad decisions. Baltar seemed unlikely to ever do such a thing. "Well, Admiral…"  
  
He stopped. A fun little idea crossed his mind.  
  
Adama was waiting patiently for him to finish.  
  
Zack grinned widely. "Admiral, I think the kids would be honored if you threw the first pitch of the tournament."  
  
"Excuse me?", he asked.  
  
"It's a ceremonial thing. You go up to the pitcher's mound and throw the ball to a catcher. And then you move on. President Roslin said she would be too busy and we've both thrown first pitches already for the Little League proper…"  
  
Adama seemed to consider it. A grin crossed his face. "I think I will." As they walked on, he added, "And maybe I'll stay for a game or two. I'm still trying to understand how you play this sport…"  
  
  
  
  
  
Worf looked over his assigned guest quarters with a discerning eye. All of his personal effects were again in his duffel bag and he had, after a proper search, made sure nothing had been lost.  
  
When he arrived at the door, Angela Delgado was waiting for him. "Heading home already?", she asked.  
  
"Yes." Worf nodded.  
  
"I'll walk you to the airlock."  
  
They moved through the corridors of the ship toward the port airlock. Once they got on a lift to take them to the lower deck where the airlock was based, Angel began speaking. "You've shown me a lot since you came aboard. Thank you."  
  
"And you show promise. It has been an honor to work with you, Lieutenant."  
  
"So, what next?"  
  
"I… am unsure. I believe I will take a leave from Starfleet to consider my future."  
  
"Right. Some time to think about things can help." Angel smirked. "I usually just hit things when I need to think."  
  
"So I have noticed." Worf grinned slightly at that. "I have left a holodeck program for your _mok'bara_ exercises with Commander Andreys."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"And if you desire things to hit instead, you may find Program Worf Calisthenics-1 as well." Worf's grin turned into a smirk. "I would recommend you ensure the safety protocols are in place before use. It can be quite… taxing."  
  
That caused Angel to laugh. "Well, that sounds interesting. I can't wait to find out."  
  
When the lift opened and they stepped out, Worf began speaking again. "I understand what drives you. I understand the need to protect what is important to you."  
  
"Yeah. You've got the same, with your brother…"  
  
"...and my son, yes." Worf took a moment to contemplate his own complicated relations with his son Alexander.  
  
Angel noticed this. "I don't have kids so I can't talk about that. But I know… just because the people you care about aren't like you doesn't mean you can't get close to them. Cat and I are so different… but I wouldn't have it any other way."  
  
"I suppose… there is wisdom to that."  
  
Angel could tell he wasn't quite accepting of her argument regardless. She didn't push it.  
  
  
  
  
Many people had turned out at the airlock to see the others off. Not simply Data and Worf (with La Forge and Picard still present), but Shepard as well. She was carrying a large duffel bag on her left shoulder, as if in defiance of the wound she took to her side below, and was in her blue duty uniform.  
  
Commander Kane was in his own olive brown Marine duty uniform. He shook her hand. "An honor and a pleasure working with you, ma'am. Hopefully we can have that drink soon."  
  
"Looking forward to it, Kane." Shepard turned her head and faced Meridina, who was in standard duty uniform. Olive brown trim below the collar of her black uniform jacket and along the sides of the trousers marked her branch as security. "Commander Meridina. It was a pleasure working with you."  
  
"Indeed, Commander Shepard."  
  
They nodded. And then Shepard's grin turned sly. "Rematch?", she asked.  
  
"Rematch, yes," was the response. " _Mi rake sa swevyra iso_ , Commander Shepard."  
  
" _Mee rocky…_ " Shepard stopped trying even as the bemused grin came to Meridina's face.  
  
"Gersallian is really hard," Lucy said, stepping up. Her uniform had the beige of Operations/Engineering on it. "I just say 'may your life force be with you', since it's about the same in meaning, but sounds _really_ weird."  
  
"Yeah, it does," Shepard agreed. She shook hands with Lucy. "How about we just go with 'Take care of yourself', Lieutenant?"  
  
"Take care of yourself, Commander," Lucy agreed.  
  
Shepard stepped away. Julia was the next to offer her hand. "It was great working with you, Commander," the blond woman said.  
  
"I've got a question," Shepard said while accepting Julia's hand. "Your uniforms seem to do the same 'branch color' thing that the Starfleet uniforms do. Your rank insignia even use the same pattern of gold and black markers. Why is that?"  
  
"It's in memory of Captain Farmer," Julia explained. "He was a Starfleet engineer who helped us before the Alliance was created. He oversaw the building of the _Aurora_. We adapted his uniform design for us back then in honor of his achievements and his sacrifice when we fought the Daleks."  
  
"Right. Thanks for that." Shepard and Julia exchanged grins and she went on.  
  
Robert was standing with Picard and the Starfleet people. And one more. Rabe was standing behind them, clearly ready to join them in departing. "Well, Captain, this is it, I suppose."  
  
"It is, for now at least," Robert answered. He accepted Shepard's hand. "It was an honor, Commander Shepard."  
  
"I have to admit, I wasn't sure how well this would work out," Shepard said. "But you and your crew are pretty good. Maybe we'll end up working together again someday."  
  
"I hope so."  
  
Shepard leaned in closer. "So… that… you know… thing you started doing…"  
  
"Yeah." Robert nodded. "I'm still getting used to it."  
  
"Take it from a biotic. Get the training you need to use it well. It'll save your life."  
  
Angel looked their way. Robert noticed the unhappy look that crossed her face and sighed. "Yeah. I know."  
  
With their exchange completed, Robert called out for everyone to look their way. "Everyone… I know that we've just gone through… well, I suppose you could actually call it 'hell'. But we came through that. And I don't think we could have done it without the allies who stood with us in the fight. Commander Shepard, Commander Data, Commander Worf… good luck to you all. We're honored to have served with you. Without your experience and skill, I don't think we would have won this. We wish you the best in the future. You'll always have a place with the crew of the _Aurora_."  
  
There were cheers from behind. Cat was the only one to fully speak out, though, calling out to Data. "Data, let me know how your emotions are doing! I can't wait until you're experiencing them completely!"  
  
"Of course," Data answered. He had them turned in partly, given the grin on his face. "I look forward to working with you again."  
  
Worf looked over everyone. "You are honorable men and women, brave and resourceful. Worthy of our respect. I was honored to serve with you all."  
  
Shepard looked at Worf with a slight grin before turning her head back to them. Her green eyes flickered with a hint of bemusement. "I think the big guy put it better than I would have."  
  
"Goodbye, Caterina," Rabe called out.  
  
"Good luck in Starfleet!", Cat replied happily.  
  
"I can see you have all made an impression," Picard stated. The applause quieted down as he spoke. "A year ago, I was looking forward to seeing where your journeys would take you and how your potential would develop. Whatever our differences of opinion, I knew that you could go far. And hearing of this past year, your first year together as a crew on this ship, I can see how right I was. You have made several critical first contacts for your Alliance, you've stood against terrible forces and strived to make this growing Multiversal community stronger. Some of you have made mistakes along the way, yes." Picard nodded. "So have we all. But what we do out here isn't about avoiding mistakes, it's about learning from them. Growing from them. And that is what I see here." Picard smiled softly at them all. "Learning from our past is how we can learn to guard our futures. You have been taking that to heart. I look forward to seeing where the next year takes you all."  
  
The applause began again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future is at stake for the crew of the ASV Aurora in their fight to keep the ancient Darglan Facility out of Reich hands.

**Tag**  
  
  
The Willamette River flowed in the distance through the window. Robert looked at it and the brightly-lit skyline of Portland beyond. The new capital of the United Alliance of Systems was growing busier every time he saw it again, it seemed.  
  
Behind him a young Gersallian woman called his name. "The President is waiting for you, Captain," she said. Her English had a melodic quality to it, much like how Meridina spoke English.  
  
"Thank you." He nodded and entered the room beyond. President Henry Morgan was at his desk. His hair was more gray than it had ever been and lines were growing ever more prominent on his dark skin. Brown eyes looked toward Robert and he could see the fatigue in them.  
  
Robert had felt the pressure of being a captain often, and moreso whenever his decisions seemed to weigh for the future of the Alliance. Seeing Morgan made him realize how well off he was. Morgan made decisions that could make or break the Alliance _every day_.  
  
Seated in a couch was Admiral Maran. The Gersallian man seemed as unflappable as ever. No new gray had been added to his hair. _They must not show stress like we do_ , Robert imagined.  
  
"Congratulations, Captain," Morgan said. "Your mission was a success. And the additional data you've given us may take years to sort through. And that includes what you found in E5B1."  
  
"Thank you, sir." Robert nodded. "We lost some people. Good people."  
  
"I know." Morgan put his hands on the desk. "Admiral Maran says you have something to share."  
  
Robert gave a glance to his commander. Maran showed no response to what Morgan said. But he had obviously read Robert's report on… everything.  
  
"Admiral Davies arranged the assignment of Commander King's ship, the _Sladen_ , so he could spy on my crew," Robert said. "I have the Commander's confession recorded, along with the proof. I provided it to Admiral Maran."  
  
"Yes." Morgan sighed. "I thought he might do something like this."  
  
"Is there anything we can do about it?"  
  
"Not without having a showdown with my Defense Minister," Morgan revealed. "And with the war on, I cannot risk that."  
  
"But he's spying on a member nation," Robert protested. "He admitted he's got Naval Intelligence spying on the Gersallian government."  
  
"I know. But after what happened in May…"  
  
"You mean the attempt to throw us off our ship."  
  
"Yes. The Gersallians… did not make friends that day." Morgan shook his head. Robert could feel the weariness coming from Morgan through his newfound power. "This Alliance is a work in progress, Captain. The war is not making it any easier to put it together. I cannot afford a showdown over this. Not again." Seeing Robert's frown, the President smiled thinly. "Thankfully your successes have quieted some of your detractors. We didn't think anyone could get the Citadel Council into an agreement without it costing us more."  
  
"Thank you, sir."  
  
"You've earned a lot of respect among the other allies too. The Klingons, the Federation… you have a growing list of friends. Hawthorne and Davies will find it hard to argue with that, not when we still need our allies for the war."  
  
_At least there is that_. "Will there be any trouble about Kurt Rabe?"  
  
"He is a conscientious defector from the Reich, not a prisoner," Maran replied. "While we might have preferred debriefing him, I've arranged the paperwork to show that his consideration for his defection was being permitted emigration to the Federation."  
  
"Good. I think he'll do better there than with us," Robert said. "Is there anything else, sirs?"  
  
"Nothing," Morgan replied. "You are dismissed, Captain."  
  
Robert nodded and turned to leave. He stopped himself at the door and looked back. "Hawthorne and Davies seem to seriously think the Order of Swenya is trying to covertly undermine the government. There's got to be a way to deal with that fear, right?"  
  
Maran and Morgan exchanged glances. "I wish there was, Captain," Morgan finally said. "But the tricky thing with paranoia is that the paranoid only accept what they want to accept. All I can hope is that time and practice show their fears are unfounded."  
  
"And that the damage they cause in the meantime can be fixed," Robert sighed.  
  
"Exactly," Morgan said. "Your ship's repairs will take another month or so, Captain, so feel free to take some leave time. Do something to decompress. We'll need you at top form when the _Aurora_ is ready to leave spacedock."  
  
  
  
  
When Robert returned to the _Aurora_ and went to his quarters, Angel was waiting for him. "So," she said, "with the ship needing repairs I figured we could take some leave time. I've always wanted to visit some of those Caribbean islands and…" She noticed the look on Robert's face. "What is it?"  
  
"I can't," he said. "Not… maybe in a week or so."  
  
Angel's lip pursed. She was clearly upset with that. "This is about that mumbo jumbo stuff, isn't it?"  
  
Robert nodded. "I've let the genie out of the bottle, Angel," he said. "So I've got to get this under control."  
  
He could feel the frustration and anger coming from her. "No. No, there has to be something… some way you can get rid of this stuff."  
  
"There isn't," he said. "I've looked into it. Leo has no idea what's happened to me. No more than he did about Lucy."  
  
"Dammit, Rob. Dammit." For a moment Angel struggled against her temper before she got it under control. "Okay, so you have to do this. But does it have to be now? Can't you take a freaking break after we all nearly _died_?"  
  
"I wish I could," he said. "But.. this power I feel, it's not something I just turn off. And I can't just leave it alone, not until I get an idea of how to control it." Seeing Angel's look he went up and put a hand on her shoulder. "Angel, a week, okay? Give me a week to train with Meridina and Lucy, just to get this thing under control. Then we'll go... I don't know, wherever you want to go. Sicily, the Aegean, the Caribbean, Acapulco, wherever. We'll take two weeks, just the two of us, together. Just us. Okay?"  
  
Angel nodded stiffly. "Two weeks."  
  
"Yeah. Two weeks. Then we come back and the ship will be getting ready to launch again."  
  
There was a moment of silence as Angel's frustration warred with her understanding. She finally nodded. "Sure. Two weeks. I'll pick the place we go."  
  
"Of course."  
  
"And no calls. We don't bring multidevices. We beam down and if anyone calls us, for any reason, I get to break one of their bones. Deal?"  
  
"As long as it's not my bone," he said jovially. "Deal."  
  
There was silence. And then Angel nodded again. "Deal." She gave him a peck of a kiss on the cheek. "Now I bet you're heading off to go learn mumbo jumbo with Meridina and Lucy, right?"  
  
"Well… yeah."  
  
"Fine. Go. Learn it." She nodded. "I'll be waiting for you."  
  
Robert could feel she still wasn't happy. But she was trying to be, for his sake if anything. He replied with a kiss on her lips. He made it a full one, and she accepted, and for several moments it was just the two of them.  
  
The kiss ended and they smiled at each other. Angel went over to the table and sat down to watch Robert leave.  
  
The smile disappeared after the door closed.  
  
  
  
  
Meridina and Lucy were waiting for Robert when he got to the holodeck on Deck 6 that they used for their training. The environment selected was a simple room with protective mats on the walls and floors. Various objects were scattered around. Meridina and Lucy were wearing light vests and baggy trousers of white and gray respectively. A similar set of clothing was laid out for him beside a partition. "For your benefit," Meridina said.  
  
"Right. I'll warn you now, we have a week and then I'm on leave. Or Angel will start punching our teeth out."  
  
Lucy chuckled at that. "Wow. You talked her into an entire week."  
  
Meridina nodded and smiled gently. Robert didn't think she was as amused though. "I understand Angela's desire to spend time with you. But it is very important that we establish your abilities, Robert, and your control, before you go off into other situations. The darkness in everyone can easily manifest in the most unexpected ways."  
  
"Tell me about it," Lucy muttered. Robert saw her actually shiver.  
  
"Okay. So… I change and then…?"  
  
"And then… what comes, comes," Meridina replied stoically. "All training will differ by the strengths and weaknesses of the individual student."  
  
"Although I, for one, am looking forward into how you deal with standing on your hands," Lucy added, chortling afterward.  
  
Robert gave her a look. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"  
  
"The training can be taxing at times, yes," Meridina admitted. "It is necessary to come to terms with your power."  
  
"Of course it is." He sighed. "This is going to be worse than the time I let Julia and Angela talk me into joining their training." He picked up the vest and trousers laid out for him and slipped behind the partition to change.  
  
While he did so, Lucy looked to Meridina. "So, how does this thing work now that you've got two students?"  
  
"It is not unknown to train two individuals in basic control at a time," Meridina said in reply.  
  
Lucy gave her a skeptical look. "It's not basic control training anymore, and you know it."  
  
"Indeed. But regardless, I believe in you both. You will learn how to use your powers to the fullest. And you will use them as you see fit."  
  
"And you're sure about that because…?"  
  
Meridina matched Lucy's curious look with one of absolute certainty, joined by a small grin. "Because, Lucy Lucero… I believe in Destiny."  
  
  
  
  
The medical bay on the _Reich's Glory_ was dimmed and quiet. The ship's night cycle was on and there was only one patient left.  
  
Erik Fassbinder tried and fail to move his left arm again. It would take more surgery, more repair, to regain the use of the limb.  
  
But he was not perturbed by that. He focused upon his right arm. His right hand. He was holding a coin in it. A five _Reichspfening_ coin that he was running around his fingers.  
  
He thought of what he had seen. The confirmation of all of his suspicions. The power that had never been known to the Reich before.  
  
Fassbinder flipped the coin in his hand a few times, thinking. Thinking of his enemies.  
  
He slowly sat up in the bed and held open his palm. The coin laid in the middle of his palm. He focused on it. He imagined the possibilities of power. The whispers of his destiny.  
  
And, just for a moment, the coin seemed to rise from his palm..  
  
  


  
**The Adventures of the _ASV Aurora_**  
 **and her crew**  
 **will continue in...**  
  
  
**_"Undiscovered Frontier"_**  
 **Season 2**


End file.
